The one wherein Sombra is a menace to society
by megafox
Summary: Sombra, the megalomaniacal anarchist hacker with poor friend-making skills, finds herself in a bind with the police and is forced to leave the Dia de Los Muertos movement and her vague left-wing politics behind to join Talon as a terrorist for-hire. Gives some backstory to Sombra's life and the events prior to "Infiltration."
1. Chapter 1

_Note: this was written almost entirely on my iPhone 4 over the course of about 2 weeks so its a bit hasty and unedited in parts. I would totally appreciate any reviews and criticism._

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Sombra hacks and 7 million euros are lost by an institutional trader in a botched algorithmic HFT that was delayed by 400 pica seconds. Sombra hacks and a U.S. Republican senator's microwave is now slowly irradiating his kitchen, he will die of skin cancer in 5 years. Sombra hacks and a botnet DDOSes a major DNS provider causing millions of dollars of lost business from service outages. Sombra hacks and an NSA server farm is now concurrently busy-waiting until she gets millions dollars of ransom money. When Sombra is in this mood hacking and fucking are the same thing.

Sombra bites her lip, hacks and thousands of people are now sending monthly donations to the CPUSA. Sombra uploads "bitch. asm" to a Facebook server and sells 70 million user names and passwords to the Chinese government. Sombra hacks and a neural network using leaked data of NSA employees can automatically identify their social media accounts. Sombra hacks and she leaves very smart people confused.

She was cruising now; she had been awake for several days riding a wave of drug fueled hypomania. Exhaustion fuels bad judgment. She had no more spare brain cycles to start on a new target, only maybe to masturbate and refactor some code. She sat back in her chair, put one hand down her pants and began to look through her notes. This was day 3 of her worldwide hacking spree.

The limit that Sombra daily faces is that there is one Sombra, which may be solved in the near future since she is training several omnic neural networks in cryptovirology.

Sombra, however, has two weaknesses.

She is a bitch

She is bad with "not computers"

She grew up an orphan, which led to problems. An intelligent woman, she knows that her weakness is that she is maladjusted. However, as an intelligent woman she concluded that she was talented and desirable enough for people to look past her weaknesses so she never has to work on them. She has yet to be proven wrong.

How did this start?


	2. Chapter 2

Sombra was transferred from relative to relative then foster home to foster home in an increasingly beleaguered system as each one prove to either be abusive, alcoholic or on the verge of poverty and unable to care for her. Sombra was a consistently perplexed, uncoordinated and emotionally unstable girl-always asking the people around her what was going on since her parents died. For this she was bullied. Throughout her time in school she wore frumpy clothes, consistently suffered poor grades and often complained of feeling sick. Sombra coped by daydreaming. The inspiration to hack came from a last straw, until that point she had felt that something was wrong with her, that she was weak and needed help and didn't understand things, that it wasn't anyone's fault and if anything it was hes for being so ugly, clumsy and stupid. Until that moment she believed it was her responsibility to be liked, to cope with the world and that she had failed to make friends with the people who bullied her.

She was 13, there had been another girl named Maria that had been more patient than any of the others, that didn't pick on her, that treated her like a person and was, in a way, training her how to socialize. So, she finally told her while walking home with adult simplicity: "I love you." It seemed to make sense at the time. The young girl was irked and said, "the truth is I hate you, you're ugly and weird and my other friends don't like you. I only hung out with you because you wanted to. I regret ever meeting you," then walked away.

Sombra's vision blurred as she felt a hotness engulf her brain, she wanted revenge against the people who persecuted her, she wanted to make them feel scared and isolated, she wanted them to feel as bad, she wanted it so badly she felt like the top of her head was coming off. She ran home with tears in her eyes and hid in a corner to sob. She screamed that she hated everyone and wanted to kill them–that they all deserved to suffer. Her body felt electric, she was suffering so badly but she felt pumped with energy the only thing that gave her solace where thoughts of revenge. No real word from the parents, she was just a confused and shy girl. The school found it necessary to pursue psychiatric care and Sombra was soon taking medication for bipolar disorder.

But that was the night she decided to learn how one might hack a social media account, she stayed up all night and stayed home sick the next day working. Her instinct was to simply ask how. This quickly brought her to the darker parts of the internet. As a somewhat vulnerable teenage girl interested in hacking, she got no end of attention and assistance from anonymous communities comprised of people with what might be deemed anti-social personalities. Her judgment was poor but to her they were friends. It wasn't long until she fell under personal tutelage of the most perverse and ruthless of them. Maria and her persecutors would soon find their accounts hacked and their secrets exposed, they faced daily death threats and found every electronic device they owned behaved devilishly. They never knew it was her but understood to leave Sombra alone. Now she wasn't asking everyone what was going on, she knew.

Sombra had been somewhat of an ugly duckling and an awkward child, she slaved away learning the intricacies of hardware and software with the resent that she was a hideous unlikeable person. By 17 she was devastatingly gorgeous and completely maladjusted. Computers had been her obsession for several years now, she had logged thousands of hours alone in the dead of night with her ears buzzing from mood stabilizing medication reading about computer architecture, programming, hacking and cracking.

Then something happened, her grades improved, everything seemed easier than what she was doing with computers.

Things had indeed become easier, people were nice to her for some reason, they found excuses to talk to her, she found she could get them to do things. One day it clicked, _I'm hot_ , she realized looking at her nubile body in the mirror. Sombra's ego inflated, she could blackmail or seduce anyone to get anything she needed, in her mind she was untouchable. Now it seemed like the world was for her so she demanded more from it. After being a well-behaved but depressed loner for four years she now wanted to push the limits on everything. She lost the dreamy dazed look from her eyes, they had become the calculating eyes of an intelligent predator.

There was a sudden need to go out, she felt a draw towards certain people–particularly the dangerous mysterious type–and they were drawn to her. She wanted to be just like them and modeled her behavior like so. People started viewing her as dangerous but desirable: she was consistently in trouble, she brought knives to school, she stopped taking her medication meant to treat her variety of mood disorders, she smoked wherever she wanted and drank in class, she started altercations on a whim but no one dared offend her or not invite her to parties. Her foster parents were powerless to discipline her, if they banned her from her computer she just wouldn't come home, she was already seeing an army of therapists and behavioral specialists.

Maria after all those years had come out as queer and now wore undercut and had a slightly stocky build. Sombra didn't care, she had no sexual politics–she was an opportunist. She learned this then got her to eat her out in the host's bedroom at some Dorado rich kid's party. When she had finished she promptly told Maria that she hated her and hit her across the face. Sombra's sexuality went according to her whim, she had become viciously hyper-sexual and everything and everyone was for her pleasure. She bullied boys into dating her and tossed them away when she was bored, she sexually harassed and intimidated other girls, she stalked people she was jealous of, she tried everything out on everyone and took a special pleasure in ruining relationships.

Maria moved on to attend college at an elite American university and would later become an advocate against domestic violence in the queer community. Sombra, as soon as she legally could, dropped out of school and proceeded to become a menace, moving out from her foster home and becoming a transient alternating between sex-work, unhealthy economically dependent relationships, petty crime and hacking to secure a string of tenuous living arrangements.


	3. Chapter 3

On the dark web Sombra found a call by Los Muertos for hacktivists. She had heard of them before, they were an anarcho-communist indigenous movement infamous for making their bank robberies a fiesta and sporting Dias de Los Muertos style tattoos. They  
had recently burst on to the political scene and were expanding. She responded to the call, they needed to forge prox cards. Sombra did it easily and they couldn't give her more work fast enough.

Thus, Sombra entered the world of left-wing politics.

Sombra had been running with Los Muertos for years now. It was a haze of violence, clubbing and weird power play sexual encounters. Her friends were all in Los Muertos, she lived in a Los Muertos squat, and she had no job but being on call for robberies  
or heists for the gang. By 23 and it didn't at all seem old, the violence kept her sober and she was consistently engaged by their work. The gang's dealer provided her with all the free drugs she wanted. Sombra's choice, of course, was methamphetamines  
which granted her a crystalline intelligence and manic enthusiasm for one-upping other hackers on the internet. She would tear through her hacks in a night for fun. It was the lifestyle. She loved putting war paint on, dressing to kill, dancing, fucking  
and fighting in the same night. It sated all her instincts.

Her usual crew was composed of five gangsters, each one bedecked in Los Muertos tattoos and as deviant and anti-social in their own way as Sombra.

 **Hotbot** : An omnic. He had exploited the post-modern sexuality of the time and was a notorious lover of women, often maintaining relationships with 3 or 4 at a time. These days he was going steady with another crew member who went by the  
name "Lolita."

 **Lolita** : She was a classical dark beauty who came from a rich family. She spoke in a bored tone and played at being an airhead and a spoiled brat. Violence was her major turn-on and her act was expert at goading people on to pursue ever  
greater stakes and violent confrontations for her amusement.

 **Allen "Bronson" Gonzales** : a mustachioed body builder and bare-knuckle boxer who fancied himself a gentlemen, he earned his name by causing over a million dollars in damage at a high security prison before escaping _a la_ his namesake.

 **Limmy** : an incredibly dangerous former martial artist skilled with balisong who taught Sombra how to fight. His career was ruined when he developed epilepsy from a strike to the head and suffered an attack mid-fight in an MMA match and  
he was forced onto the streets. He was a bald, skinny man with a fair amount of lean muscle, deep set eyes and a rat tail. He claimed that cocaine cured his fits. Los Muertos brought him in and the focus the gang gave him seemed to alleviate some  
of his symptoms.

 **Adolfo** : a car thief and getaway driver with extensive technical know-how when it came to electronics and cars. He had a prosthetic leg from a car crash during a botched escape and was perpetually mad or depressed about it, he took a particular  
pleasure in breaking other peoples bones.

The five of them were a holy terror. With them she did it all and at scale: she robbed banks, pharmacies, and jewelry stores. She participated in terrorist attacks with car bombs, drive-by shootings, once she even hijacked a plane carrying a U.S. diplomat  
demanding that Mexico withdraw from OSA and all free trade negotiations. She kidnapped or assassinated government and military officials, captains of industry, and their family members without hesitation. All for Los Muertos.

Sombra's pet project, however, was uncovering just who was in power. It was this, rather than her other activities, that brought her the most attention.

On the verge of revelation, Sombra was caught but was never found out, rather, in classic hacker fashion, she was caught because she bragged. CISEN, aware of her unbelievable sexual appetite, would send young male agents to try and honeypot her. Sombra,  
a tricky bisexual, had never been seduced by a man in her life, they didn't particularly excite or interest her unless there was a power dynamic. The CIA shared the necessary intelligence with them that that would never ever work and Sombra found  
herself bragging to fit mixed-race _chica_ with cropped dirty-blond hair she had somehow never seen before in a Dorado bar.

"The ING hack was all me, want proof?" she placed her hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear. "Come to my place"

In a flash they were in the small loft-space Sombra had carved out for herself in the squat and Sombra was embracing the green-eyed _chica_ like she owned her. The girl was a natural beauty: her caramel skin smelled like the sun, her heavy breathing  
revealed all the taught muscles in her body, her small perky breasts were quite responsive. Sombra gave her a hell of a time. Gabriela, Sombra's acquaintance, didn't have much trouble with Sombra. She was absolutely Sombra's type and Sombra had always  
been very easy to get off anyways–too easy, she complained at times. Perhaps the combination of too much and too little pleasure from sex that fueled her appetite.

Physical access guarantees a hack is successful. The bitch attached a modified Raspberry Pi Zero to Sombra's computer and all of Sombra's illicit work was exfiltrated. By morning she was gone. In a couple of days Sombra would awake in a hung-over daze  
to the sound of the police knocking on her door. She was about 25 when she was arrested and charged with everything up to treason. It is hard when the most powerful people in your country hate you. "Never trust light-skin (over here)" became her motto.

At that time Sombra went by a different name, Sombra became Sombra in a Mexican prison.

In prison Sombra relied on Los Muertos more than she ever did on the outside. She was naked and powerless without computers. It was during this time she glow tattooed her face, a sure fire sign amongst Los Muertos members that they were full time and  
would not be re-entering society. Sombra attempted for months to meet with lawyers to try and be treated as a political prisoner but the state would not allow it. She and the other Los Muertos members went on hunger strike to attract sympathy for  
their cause but the media self-censored in the ongoing repressive political climate and refused to report what was going on. There was no one to hear their testimony of endless repression, beatings and even rape and torture. It was well known amongst  
Los Muertos that the women in the gang were the toughest and endured the worst of it. As punishment for the strike Sombra was cut off from the lawyers. Some elements of Los Muertos became increasingly desperate and orchestrated greater acts of disobedience.

Work stoppages and protests began. Sombra participated in the strikes and the state reacted harshly. She had been given multiple lifetime sentences for her involvement and was forced to fulfill a sentence of solitary confinement. Sombra had entered prison  
when she was 25, she was now 27 and had committed to a decision. It had occurred to Los Muertos that the state was in all-out war with them. Political action was not sufficient, they were orchestrating with gang members on the outside and anyone who  
would help to stage a breakout.

The Dia de Los Muertos breakout was the largest in Mexican history and possibly the Americas. It occurred as a part of a larger putsch against the Mexican government called the O-31 movement. The tension between Los Muertos which had become a popular  
movement and the government was at an all-time high. The government had issued a nation-wide orderforbidding anyone from wearing makeup or masks on the holiday and ordered a strict curfew to prevent protests. The people, naturally, disobeyed.

Los Muertos staged multiple protests which immediately turned violent when the police fired on protesters. Under the cover of the street demonstrations, the most radical elements hit government buildings, burned down the homes of bankers, right-wing activists  
and journalists, firebombed police stations and generally caused mayhem.

On the second day of protests, armed protesters hit the prison where Sombra was held in coordinated strike. It had been planned for months: as the protesters distracted the guards, Los Muertos guerrillas infiltrated in the chaos and rescued their comrades.  
Sombra was free.

It was November 1, the night after the O-31 protests and the government had collapsed and fled to the United States. Sombra held her bottle of rum high as she stumbled through the desolated streets. It was her first night of freedom. Los Muertos was looking  
victorious and Sombra was unbelievably drunk. She had scored several bottles of rum during the course of the looting. During the breakout she'dpersonally tortured and violated the guards that had persecuted her and was drunk on revenge and violence.

She passed under a bridge. Suddenly her foot connected with something in the street. The object made a sickening thud. It was a person, a dead person.

"Today, we honor the dead," she said pouring some of her rum out on the body, "may this r-rum guide you to the afterlife"

Suddenly, the body stirred. "I'm not dead you idiot. Who the hell are you, why did you kick me?"

The body was in fact an old bearded man. He spoke a hyper-corrected Spanish with a high pitched complainant tone.

Sombra hiccuped. "Speaker for the dead," she said then laughed, "I thought you were gone, I was guiding you to the afterlife. Who are you?"

The bearded man looked up at Sombra, all he saw was a glowing skeleton. He was irked.

"You're one of those Los Muertos people"

Sombra bowed theatrically. "The very same"

"You're no psychopomp. You kids just take drugs and cause mayhem. You're criminals is what you are. And why do you wear those stupid tattoos?"

Sombra grinned. "Every day is the Day of the Dead for us. We're honoring the ancestors and the old gods, reclaiming our spirituality, our culture"

The old man laughed.

"I bet you don't know anything about that, you're making a fool of yourself. Old gods, my ass, you need Jesus"

A vicious streak suddenly went through Sombra, she had been beat up, tortured and worse in jail. A familiar hot feeling engulfed her skull, he had rekindled her thirst for revenge. She kicked the old man.

"Why? That was on purpose that time!"

"I don't take criticism from homeless old men"

"Homeless? This is my home, not that you'd know what that is like"

"More than you think"

Sombra kicked the old man again.

"Why again? I'm defenseless"

"No reason," she replied flatly.

"No reason? You need better than that"

In response she kicked him several more times out of spite.

"It's a shame you don't agree, that you think we're all criminals. Our movement is to help the poor." She kicked again, this time in his stomach. He grunted in pain. "You're not a violent soul, I can tell," she continued. She put her bottle down and crouched  
down next to the homeless man's face. "Come on, see who's hitting you." She grabbed his cheeks. "Look at me, Christ you smell. Look at me, I'm just a girl, you're a man, you gonna let me kick you and boss you around?"

The man stared at Sombra, confused. She slapped him in the face after a moment, when he failed to respond she hit him two more times.

"Leave me alone," he pleaded.

Sombra laughed, "that's your response? Come on, find your power. Teach me a lesson." Sombra sighed, he was being no fun, she tried a different angle, "take a good look at me, you see? I'm pretty hot right?"

"You're a narcissist"

"No no no, you're missing my point. Don't lie. You'd go for me if I let you. What I don't turn you on?" She slapped him again. "You're pissing me off"

Now closer, he could see her more clearly. Her tattoos and the ambient light revealed that she was quite beautiful, though hard.

"You're attractive but I find your soul ugly"

"A lot of people go for me, friend. Men and women, omnics. There is a life out there, if you'll live it, where you take what you want. You're an old man but I know girls who'll try anything. Who love a guy if he breaks a rule or two, can fuck 'em in a  
way they've never been fucked before," she grabbed him and started shaking him, "you know, can really go raw on them," she let go and fell backwards laughing hysterically. The man stared at her fearfully as she laughed. After a while she regained  
herself and got up, "you should join our little society"

"You're insane"

"Life's not just for the rich. You just have to learn what you are entitled to and take it. You think it's a dream until you're having it"

"You people call yourself revolutionaries. When I was growing up, real revolutionaries wanted to help the poor and suffering. They didn't beat them up. I remember-"

Suddenly Sombra was on top of him holding a knife to his throat.

"You know tonight is my first night out of prison? You know what they did to me in there?" Sombra stared into his eyes with unnerving intensity. "The fucking pigs did whatever they wanted. If you want to fight them you have to be capable of anything.  
So don't tell me about real revolutionaries"

Suddenly, Sombra's facial expression softened and she pulled the knife away. "I'm drunk, can I spend the night here?"

"What? No you may not-"

"Shut up, I'm sleeping here, you see the knife?"

"Yes, I see your stupid knife, you've been threatening me with it"

"If you try to rape me I'll cut your dick off"

Sombra grabbed her bottle and sat next to the homeless man. After taking a suicidal swig of rum she hung her head on his shoulder. She was out in moments. The homeless man cursed and gave her half of his blanket then tried to get back to sleep. They woke  
up to the sound of running footsteps and drums.

The revolution, however, was not a success. Los Muertos had been in no way prepared to take power. Their attempts at redistributing food turned into looting, the workers refused to return to work and failed to occupy factories, people used the chaos to  
settle scores and pillage and rape, the people's courts and councils collapsed when competent leaders failed to emerge. In 6 weeks the government was back in power and the cops and the military were thirsty for revenge. But Sombra was out and after  
years of being denied a computer, Sombra was to make sure she would never be without one.


	4. Chapter 4

It was about midday at the ING Bank in Mexico City. No one had heard from Los Muertos for a few months now. Foreign banks like these were a usual target but these days things were normalizing, security was allowed to be more lax. Bankers banked, a man negotiated a loan for his incidental hardware store with a bank representative, the bank manager sighed thinking of his upcoming vacation plans at his adorable summer rental for him and his beautiful family, financial capital flowed freely. All was well.

In a flash, Sombra burst through the banks front entrance with a group of armed Los Muertos thugs in tow, "Ladies and gentlemen and omnics—we haven't forgotten you, we're here to take back the money stolen from the people. Relax, take a cupcake and enjoy the festivities."

The bank guards immediately started calling in a robbery. One guard drew his pistol to fire and Sombra immediately hosed him down with her machine pistol. The crowd in the bank was hushed by the sudden gun fire.

"And please, no guns, we are a non-violent movement," said Sombra to the crowd, "How I hate silence, Mr. Maestro, will you play?"

The Los Muertos mariachi band started up "El clavo y la cruz" as the thugs went to the tellers and emptied out their drawers. Los Muertos had a habit of robbing banks accompanied by "revolutionary brass bands" and "roving bandit entertainers." This time they were distributing baked goods. Two beautiful girls sporting full Los Muertos tattoos and wearing only kitchen aprons took this as their cue to start passing out cupcakes. Soon they were on to the next bank and the next bank.

That day Los Muertos hit 3 banks in under 10 minutes in Mexico City. They drove the getaway van into the river, escaped into the sewer canals and emerged in a Los Muertos controlled slum. Soon they were drinking heavily, singing "The International" and divvying up the loot in a Los Muertos squat.

After splitting the loot between all the heisters and giving the larger take to Los Muertos' war coffers, Sombra could finally afford her "upgrades."

It was all for a good cause, Sombra wanted modifications. Unlike her upwardly mobile countrymen's increasing predilection for cosmetic body alteration as the country's uneven recovery continued, her desired modifications were brutally practical. It was radical, it would allow her to interface with computers in a way that mirrored omnics. She would, for all intents and purposes, become a hybrid human-omnic.

She had been planning this surgery for a while and had murdered for it. A lone omnic had gone wandering from his friends at the bar—omnics can't drink and find this human ritual boring—and found himself clubbed in the head by a glow in the dark skeleton girl and cannibalized for parts. He was barely in the news the next day, no one cared about missing omnics.

There were only a few people in the world who could do the type of surgery she wanted.

Sombra had heard-tell of a person in California who was willing to do the surgery like this. However, finding her and getting to California posed a difficult problem. Sombra was incredibly hot right now; she doubted that no one noticed that she escaped from prison. U.S. border security was incredibly heightened when Mexico destabilized. But Sombra needed this, she would never be caught again with these upgrades, she would be inhumanly fast and elusive. She would get the components surgically grafted to her spinal column and her ability to hack would move at the speed of thought.

Sombra contemplated this as she looked over the schematics she had made. It was too late to go back now: she had murdered an omnic in cold blood to get the components—not even to mention the bank robberies.

 _How am I going to do this?_

Sombra had secured the passport of an actual America citizen after some wheeling and dealing on the Internet. It had arrived at her crappy apartment this morning.

"No way," said Sombra eying the picture, "I said for her to look like me"

She cursed, she didn't fully trust the guy so she sent a detailed description of what she wanted not a photo. The woman was a little bigger than her, had blonde hair, blue down-turned eyes and extremely pale skin. In other words, she looked nothing like Sombra. The fool had taken a flight to Mexico to do volunteer work and lost her passport. Sombra had to do this fast before she knew it was missing and found herself stranded at the airport desperately trying to deactivate it.

Sombra gathered what she needed to try and pull this off. She would need normal white-people clothes not her shredded shirts and jeans and would have to lighten her features. She utterly despised the idea, unfortunately increasingly popular in her country, especially for the sake of looking like this dumb North American girl. Her Mohawk hair was completely shaven on the sides. No way she could just dye it. She bought a wig, braided it and tried her best to make it look lank and oily like the passport picture. Sombra thrifted a T-shirt of some random U.S. state university and tied the back in the way she had seen U.S. tourists and volunteers do it. A chemical bath hid the glow tattoos and temporarily lightened her skin. Color changing contacts did the trick but her eyes were plainly different, she played around with makeup and managed to obscure it.

"Heh, I'm white," she chuckled looking in the mirror, she picked up the passport to compare, "but this bitch is still whiter than me"

She practiced saying, "I got sun on vacation," in her best North American accent.

She went online and found students from Texas arranging road-trips to and from Mexico. Everything was in order; she just had to tolerate Texas A&M students for a couple of hours.

"Looks like you got some color Ms. –let's see here– Kaufman," said the border guard eying her from behind his reflective aviators.

"Yes, it was wonderful," said Sombra.

She smiled innocently. The guard lowered his glasses and scrutinized the picture for what felt like an eternity then looked at Sombra. She continued to smile. _Shit_ , she thought, _I underdid it with the skin lightener_. It had been especially hard to lighten her face.

"I must say you're looking mighty healthier than your picture here, I could hardly tell it was you," he said handing the passport back to Sombra, "Welcome back to the states Ms. Kaufman"

 _Oh, he was hitting on me_ , she thought.

Some customs agents finished investigating the trunk of the car, found some opened tequila, smashed it and the rowdy car was on its way. Once they were clear of the boarder Sombra pulled off the wig revealing her pink Mohawk.

"Dude," said one of the frat bros elbowing his friend.

He pointed to Sombra's hair as she pulled a crushed packet of Marlboro Reds from her jeans.

"Got a problem?" asked Sombra before taking a heavy drag.

She had been unbelievably stressed; she couldn't believe they didn't recognize the components from the dead omnic hidden in plain sight. Sombra needed a fucking cigarette.

From Texas she took a bus to California. She had to get to L.A. to find Dr. Morin. Well, formerly doctor. Jacqueline Morin was a surgeon and computer scientist who had perfected a unique way of surgically grafting unconventional electronic components into people. She had also perfected a neural interface which allowed one to control the grafted component as though it were a part of their body. Far more advanced than mere prosthetics, Dr. Morin made it possible to interface with more complex and less specialized hardware than artificial limbs, namely computer processors. Dr. Morin had successfully tried this out on herself but after the Omnic Crisis, an anti-omnic ideology took hold and she was stripped of her academic credentials and deemed an abomination.

"Doctor," Sombra had found Jacqueline sitting alone in a dive bar of an omnic/human neighborhood valiantly resisting gentrification, "I have business for you"

"Hope you don't mind if I have a drink first," Jacqueline replied, it was incidental but Sombra was getting strong lesbian vibes from her: her creaky voice, her white tank-top and muscles, her piercings and tattoos. Jacqueline being a savvy woman herself immediately identified Sombra as a sexual opportunist, though she didn't like that she had lightened her skin, "and please, call me Jackie. How much do you have?"

Sombra told her and she blinked.

They grinned at each other, this was going to work.

Soon Sombra was below the bar, topless lying down on a chair converted into a makeshift surgical bed using tequila as anesthetic while the doctor grafted the hardware from the dead omnic to her back. The doctor had swapped out her prosthetic arm for one that is normally used by industrial robots building circuitry. A jumble of thick cables ran from the ceiling into her arm, they twitched and shook as she moved her mechanical arm with machine precision. She was only two beers in. This would be a long night.

Sombra awoke in Jacqueline's bed, she was holding her. Sombra had felt more comfortable and secure in this strangers bed than she'd felt in a long time. She had slept late. Somehow she knew it was 3:23pm. The bedroom was medium sized with high bookshelves and antique but modest furniture, contemporary art furnished the walls, a small glass door opened up a tiny terrace with a rod-iron coffee table and chair. She gently removed Jacqueline's hands, got up and oriented herself.

She was naked but Jacqueline was still wearing her tank-top-she peered over-and nothing else. Sombra thought back, she had blacked out the surgery but remembered Jacqueline kissing her belly, then kissing the inside of her thigh then slowly kissing her pelvis and moving down. Her back throbbed, she felt it and touched metal and inflamed skin. She then ran her hand through her shaved hair. Her fingers brushed up against a neural interface.

 _Yes_ , she thought, _I did it_.

Despite her hangover she felt lucid. Her biology ached from travel and stress but something else in her propelled her thought along, she was thinking so clearly. She got out of bed and walked over to a book case. She grabbed a book "The Politics of Nature" and flipped through the pages. After some time she closed it and found she could read the pages from memory.

Sombra chuckled, this is power. The walked over to Dr. Morin's desk, her computer sat open, totally unguarded. Sombra tapped her lips and thought to herself. It was a desktop, what where the chances it was just… open, unlocked? She moved the mouse, the screen turned into her desktop.

 _Unbelievable_ , thought Sombra, _even someone like Morin doesn't protect her computer_. She opened her browser and navigated to a site Sombra had set up to compromise people's browsers. Morin's browser warned about malware, Sombra clicked ignore and the site automatically started uploading Dr. Morin's saved passwords, history, and browser cache. She couldn't help herself, who would know when this might come in handy? It was done in an instant.

A yawn emanated from the bed.

"Hey," said Jacqueline.

"Heya," Sombra replied, "you did good work"

Sombra crawled back on to the bed and kissed her.

"How do you feel?" Sombra wrapped her legs and arms around Jacqueline and they spoke between kisses.

"Powerful"

"You requested some radical stuff, the finger nails I wouldn't have had done myself"

Sombra flicked her new claws, she suddenly remembered Jacqueline pulling her organic ones out at the root, now she could pulse electricity through them at will.

"Aw, you don't like them," she teased as she ran her new gun-metal gray inch long nails across Jacqueline's cheek, "Don't worry, I'm gentle"

"I know you are," Jacqueline brushed her fingers off, "It's funny, I don't usually sleep with my projects. What's your name, by the way?"

"Oh, you'll know soon enough"

Morin laughed dismissively, "Ok, badass, just don't do anything evil with this stuff," she warned.

"I definitely will," replied Sombra, moving some hair out of Morin's eyes, she giggled and fell backwards.

"You think I'm joking? You don't know me, I'm a bad person"

"I believe you, I'm not a good person either. That's why you're all jacked up right now"

"No, you are"

"So certain of yourself," replied Morin looking past Sombra, "How do you know? What I do is illegal, how can I be a good person?"

Sombra rested her chin on Morin's chest, "I can see it in your eyes, you might not care when it comes to money but I can tell you don't hurt people, not like I have"

Jacqueline turned her head to meet Sombra's gaze, she smiled, "what do you see?"

"I don't know, just you. Your eyes look kind"

This pricked Sombra's hair up. Dr. Morin's statement sent signals bouncing around Sombra's brain. _She can't tell_ , she thought. Sombra's eyes changed as a sense of advantage overcame her. Morin caught it, "Well, now you look like a wolf"

Sombra laughed.

She showered and washed the chemical lightener out of her skin. Emerging from the bathroom naked, her skin and tattoos were restored. Jacqueline was wowed, she couldn't believe the creature she had in her apartment. She teased and begged and prodded her to have sex again. Soon they were in bed again enjoying the afterglow.

The thought of staying in California and becoming this woman's girlfriend crossed Sombra's mind, she thought about living in her beautiful apartment. _No, she would just dump her when she was bored of her. She has everything she needs, I don't._

Morin gave Sombra her phone number before she left.

"I don't expect you'll ever call but if you ever need anything..."

"Don't count on it"

"Well, I'd like to see you again," she smiled, the infatuation was in her eyes, "mystery girl"

Soon Sombra was back in Mexico. Leaving the U.S. was far easier than entering. Sombra paid the guard to look the other way and before she knew it she was back in her sweaty blown out apartment.

The surgery changed her to her core. Her brainstem could interface with circuitry, she could program by thinking, her nails had been replaced with conductive ultra-sharp metal, she could pulse electromagnetic energy out of her hand and act as a ground. Things were different now.

Now she hacks and Jesus Christ can't save the person she is hacking. Now she hacks and accidents happen to powerful people. Things that are supposed to be locked are not locked and things that are not supposed to be locked are. Now she hacks and if you knew you would vomit from a sense of profound insecurity and wrongness at the violation of privacy. Now she hacks and you pray it's someone who deserves it. Sombra knows: her memory is extensible and supported by cloud computing, her intelligence is upgradeable.


	5. Chapter 5

Sombra's apartment was a shithole. It was the second floor of an old factory warehouse that had barely been modified, the neighborhood was notoriously bad, an automated plastics factory would whir to life at 2 in the morning which made Sombra effectively nocturnal but it was an improvement from the Los Muertos squat. There was fast internet and the landlord was renting the place out illegally so he didn't ask questions. It was also dirt cheap.

These days the squat was raided by the police all the time and had effectively become a show space for posers and drug-heads. In the squat's loft space, she would have to climb a ladder to get into her "home" which she found was frequently occupied by drug addicts and transients. Some nights she would fight them to claim her space, other nights she would just give up and sleep next to them if they didn't look sketchy. Her policy in these instances was to pull out her knife, wake them and say, "See this? If you try and rape me, I'll cut your dick off with it. Sleep well."

Sombra could barely work in the squat: teenagers ranted about anarchism and revolution, had sex, did drugs, crazy old people yelled incoherently, syncretic church services were held, parties raged while Sombra coded drinking a bottle of tequila to drown out the noise. Sombra learned to type with one hand and play with a butterfly knife with the other so that if anyone got close she would cut them. Sometimes it was so unbearable she would spend the night in a woman's shelter until she was banned for doing drugs and "making the internet slow." The punk houses and squats in the city all swelled with the dejected outcasts of the post-Omnic Crisis economy and were effectively all the same even if they tried to lay down rules. Sombra's current arrangement was an improvement.

Sombra ran her criminal enterprise from her apartment. Mysterious packages arrived, she would 3D print components for guns, bombs and all manner of illegal devices. At the moment, however, she was having trouble getting started.

Sombra eyed an open magazine on her desk next to the keyboard of her massive computer. It was open to an article, _"¿Quien es Sombra?"_

"Who am I? I don't even know"

Sombra's hive bots moved to the magazine then shuffled asking if she wanted it.

"No thanks guys"

The quarter sized robots returned to their place in a line on her desk. Los Muertos was on the run, it had been almost a year since the O-31 movement had done anything and that was looking like their high point. Everyone she knew was in hiding. The gang she felt so close to was disintegrating despite her efforts and new abilities.

She used to go out with them all the time to pillage, rape and loot, she loved the violence and one upping the cops. She loved going to clubs and hooking up in a drug fueled frenzy with girls who thought she was a badass. They used to own the clubs, now there was no club that would even let them in. Sombra missed the haze of sleeping all day then speedballing and dominating the streets at night . With no real job she would hack for days at a time for Los Muertos. When she was bored she could go to all the usual hangout spots and her gang would be there. When they needed money, they would rob a place. When they needed food, they would rob a place. When they needed entertainment, they would enter for free then maybe rob the place. These days, money and kindness were short.

"Maybe I should have a baby," she said aloud.

The robots shuffled, unsure how to help her.

She flipped through the magazine and found an article, "Los Muertos are not the saviors we're looking for: street gang lacks political vision." All this directionlessness depressed her. Los Muertos was faltering but she wasn't.

Sombra threw the magazine against the wall and looked down at her belly button. Her tattoos and pair of small black underwear she hadn't changed in weeks filled her vision. She felt her hangover worsening _. I'm going down with this ship_ , she thought.

Sombra eyed her works, maybe she would use today. No, she needed a pick me up. She opened her drug stash, a small box with a calavera skull on it. It was now somewhat diminished but she was pretty sure she still had coke for emergency purposes. Sombra pulled out a baggy with a hefty heel of white powder and began to cut it up with a razor blade when

"Heyy," said a young female voice behind her.

"What the fuck?" Sombra was shocked.

Soft hands touched her shoulders, then guided themselves down her bra strap and wrapped around her.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked.

"You don't remember? Last night..."

Sombra turned around to see a young Asian girl, she couldn't have been more than 19 standing in front of her in her underwear.

"I'm trying to do coke here," she eyed the teenager, "and you're not my type..."

"Hey! I was your type last night, Debbi"

Sombra noticed the hickeys on the girl's neck _, what was I thinking_?

" _L_ _argarse_ kid"

"Do you even know who I am?"

"Gamer... gamer girl?" Sombra winced as she wracked her memory, it was all disjointed and blurry. "Do you even know who I am, huh? Well, it's not Debbi"

The girl's eyes began to tear up.

"It's too early for English. Come on kid, just get out of here, I'm a bad influence," Sombra returned to her cocaine.

"Fuck you. I have a flight to catch"

"Yeah, go do your games"

"Fuck you," shouted the girl storming through the apartment collecting her things as she hastily clothed herself.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a real asshole. Don't let the door hit your tiny ass on the way out"

The girl swore at her in what Sombra thought was Korean or Japanese but didn't care and slammed the door. The plates and silverware in Sombra's ratty apartment jumped. Sombra continued cutting up her cocaine.

"Hey, I liked her"

"What the fuck, man?" shouted Sombra startled, "Lucio? Some night you had"

Lucio scratched his crotch. She was mildly disgusted by this. Sombra had met Lucio at a show and didn't respect him. He was instrumental to leading a revolution in his own country but now he was a popstar. He was infatuated with "the change he could make with his music." They had met at the Los Muertos squat a few years ago on tour and done drugs together. At that point he was still relatively underground, his music was edgier and he didn't wear that stupid frog suit. She had found him palatable as a man. He definitely was magnanimous. But now she thought he was a sell-out capitalizing on his cult of personality.

"More like some night she had, she liked you better"

Sombra vaguely remembered the sounds of the sighing teenager from last night. "I don't remember, bit young though"

"Hey, when are we ever going to-"

He was interrupted by Sombra railing a line of cocaine. She lifted her head.

"I don't like men, its offensive when you ask," she said holding her left nostril and repeatedly shaking out her right hand.

"I wasn't-"

"I've got a busy day ahead, so I'd appreciate it if you got out," said Sombra sniffing.

"I see that. You know, I'm not in Mexico for very long..."

"Get out"

"But-"

"Out"

Lucio scowled and recovered his clothing. Sombra booted up her IDE then began to cut up more cocaine. This was going to be her day, maybe her next few days.

And now she's hacking.

 _Never mind the celebrities in your apartment_ , she thought tapping away at her keyboard.

As she hacked the night was piecing itself back together, she recognized the familiar patterns. Situations like this had happened before in their not-so-platonic relationship: they would get drunk and get in a competition to seduce a girl, sometimes it ended in them sharing conquests while Lucio would often try to get in her pants.

 _Did they pick her up at a mainstream club? What the fuck was I thinking? How did we end up at my place?_

The questions multiplied as the wreckage of the night revealed itself.

Bank account: empty.

Drugs: almost out.

Friends: none to speak of.

The situation was dire.

 _Maybe I could marry Lucio,_ thought Sombra.


	6. Chapter 6

Sombra had been hacking for days. She eyed her cell phone. 10 texts from Lucio three days ago. He was definitely gone by now, off to the U.S. or Europe or wherever he went. She checked Lucio's email. He was off to Numbani for a concert.

Lucio was something like a friend, although he knew nothing about Sombra. Their friendship had strict but unspoken limits. In other words, their relationship was purely self-destructive: they never supported each other emotionally, they lied constantly to each other, they spent tons of money when they were together and provoked each other into increasingly riskier situations. Sombra was aware the Lucio was actually a good person but she loved bringing him to a baser level, she coaxed him into abusing his power and celebrity status. She wasn't sure why Lucio went out of his way to meet her when he was in Mexico and openly wondered if the tragedy that supported their relationship was that he loved her or something stupid like that.

Day four of her hacking spree had come and gone. She felt her body temperature fluctuate and felt oddly horny, the drugs were having their run of her body. Thus, it occurred to Sombra while masturbating as a break from her hacking spree, that she had no friends. That while she had Lucio as someone she could count on for entertainment, she had only ever hung out with him 7 or 8 times, he didn't even know she was in prison he just thought she wasn't returning his calls. That though she had climbed her way through the ranks of Los Muertos and people relied on her, Sombra was short on people she could rely on for favors.

It occurred to Sombra, similarly, in day five while struggling to open a package for some illegal tech she got from Shenzhen and finding her own grunting sexy, laughing about this but then laughing much harder because a sniper had her in their crosshairs, that she had many enemies.

"I know you are there" shouted Sombra, "If you were going to kill me you would have done it. I'm not an idiot, just come out"

The sniper had indeed wanted her to know she was there. They dragged the laser pointer across her hand up to her forehead. Sombra began to sweat as her eyes searched for the sniper. It was worse than she thought. That was when the police came.

 _Knock knock_.

"Open up, police!"

"Just a minute," yelled Sombra. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath.

There was her drug stash that needed to be flushed in her toilet that wouldn't consistently flush. There was her hard-drives that needed to be magnetically wiped, although she had protocols for that. There were her illegal weapons, there was no way of getting rid of those easily. The whole situation was fucked. But this sniper, were they with the police?

It was that moment a horrible skulled apparition manifested in front of her blocking the source of the laser. The being, like lightning, drew a gun to her face.

"Hi," uttered a deformed voice from inside the skull.

Sombra recognized the apparition. In her travels trying to map the global network of power she had heard of Talon. It was a fraternity of spies, assassins and mercenaries. They were considered by most Western governments to be a terrorist organization. Back in the day they were the main enemy of Overwatch and emerged unchallenged after they were disbanded. The man before her, only known as Reaper, was wanted internationally. He dressed in a long hooded black coat that covered his extensive body armor. He was known to have seemingly supernatural abilities such as the ability to disintegrate into a cloud of particles and materialize at will. Now he was an other being, perhaps the result of experimentation or a fluke accident, Sombra didn't know.

"Reaper," she said as her eyes narrowed.

"You're going to work for us," he growled.

"Talon?"

"Maybe"

"And if I refuse?"

Reaper cocked his head sideways. The knocking repeated and got louder.

"Police, this is your final warning!"

"Looks like we're not the only ones who want you. Your choice"

"That's not really a choice, friend."

The figure stood silently. She could hear the police shuffling outside, "You have 5 seconds to open the door!"

"I don't get blackmailed"

"4"

"3"

The figure looked unintimidated.

"2"

" _T_ _u pinche pendejo,_ I'll do it just get me out of here, you really don't want to go to jail in my country!"

"1"

Armored police burst in just as Reaper pulled Sombra to the side and met them with shotgun blasts. They collapsed like bowling pins. Sombra looked on not astonished but jealous. The laser dot on her head disappeared and Sombra heard sniper fire. As Reaper began his work she was free to act.

"No one puts baby in a corner," said Sombra under her breath.

Sombra took the opportunity to pull out the 3D printed machine pistol she had taped under her desk table. Reaper emptied shells into the armored cop's shields but they flicked off ineffectively. They were trying to push in. She used Reaper's fire as an opportunity to rush to the entrance. Sombra whipped past Reaper and hid on the left of the entrance. Reaper reloaded and the cops rushed, Sombra grinned. Once their shields were clear of the door she emptied her clip into the backs of the charging police. Her gun roared and they toppled like rags dolls. A few cops down, many more to go.

A smoke grenade landed in front of Reaper. Smoke poured out but Sombra was all over it, she scrambled to it and threw the grenade back.

"You've never been to a protest before, huh?" she said to Reaper.

Soon the cops were completely obscured, Sombra crept into the cloud. She saw through the smoke the cops donning their gasmasks and preparing for another assault. She took the opportunity to run up and pull the pins out of the nearest cop's flashbangs.

" _Adios_ "

She jumped away as the grenades popped, immediately causing the cops' ears and eyes to rupture and bleed. She reloaded and gunned them down in their confusion.

She laughed. "I might take the job after all"

Widowmaker repositioned. She spotted more cops grouping outside.

"Cops and an armored van in the alley" she reported as the cops caught sight of her firing into the colonial building.

Widowmaker ran to cover then zeroed in a shot on one of the cops. After a crackle of sniper fire he was down and the other cops looked at each other apprehensively. Another shot and another cop was down. They threw down their gear and ran into the armored van. They scrambled inside the van to start it. Another crackle and the would-be driver fell against the steering wheel honking the horn. The last man stumbled out the van but met Reaper materializing in front of him. One blast and he was blown back. He flopped onto the ground, dead.

Sombra met Talon inside her apartment with their guns drawn. Almost every cop was dead. They had run instead of calling for reinforcements. Even the helicopters they called in had withdrawn under the threat of sniper fire.

"So you were threatening me to take a job?"

Widowmaker pouted and held up her gun. Reaper holstered his weapons.

"Yes or no?" growled Reaper.

"Yes, on a couple of a few conditions," the Talon agents stared on impatiently, "we get to do that again and I get whatever I want and I get to decide a bunch of other stuff later and whenever I want"

"We need to move…" said Widowmaker impatiently.

"That doesn't make any sense," said Reaper.

"I'm glad we could come to this agreement," said Sombra.

Perhaps she had hallucinated that they said yes. She had been awake for so long, she wasn't even sure if anything that just happened was real.

"Sombra-," Reaper started.

"Don't argue, we are not in a position to debate," said Widowmaker, "you're hired"

"Very savvy," laughed Sombra as she walked over to a parked car, "who exactly did you think I was?"

Outside Sombra smashed a car window with her elbow and the car alarm started blaring, she opened the door and began to hotwire the car. They escaped the scene into an amphibious aircraft docked in the harbor. Upon entering the aircraft someone immediately restrained and blindfolded her.

Sombra laughed nervously. "No way, come one guys"

"Sorry, it's just business," replied Widowmaker.


	7. Chapter 7

Sombra was brought into a compartment and her blindfold removed. She was barely able to glimpse the boots of who had done it as the door slammed shut. The room was dark and sparse with a single bed, no windows and one exit, however, it didn't seem like a cell. She gathered that she was on the second floor of wherever she was. Her tattoos illuminated the Spartan room. It had been a while since she had been out with Los Muertos, her tattoos were losing their glow. She would have to touch them up again. In fact she had really let herself go, she had been awake for so long and had failed to shower and eat. Sombra missed her friends in Los Muertos. They would be coming soon for her, she hoped.

That is, if they were her friends. This "no friends" realization was beginning to intrude.

Sooner than she expected she stopped counting on them, they should have been looking for her days into her hacking spree.

 _Cowards,_ she thought to herself.

Periodically Sombra was taken out and interrogated by various Talon agents. All of them anonymous, hiding behind masks, voice distorters and bullshit. They interrogated her from an observation room, their voices echoed loudly and mechanically through the white room. Each time they grilled her on what she knew about Talon, all her illegal activities and her history. For some reason they didn't beat her or torture her, they were not keen on coercing information from her but they did threaten to turn her over to the police and the government.

"I don't care. Someone like me can work for the government. They want people like me. I'll rat on anyone and all my friends know I'd do it, they'd do the same to me," she laughed.

"Sombra…"

"That's not my name," she sneered, "fuck this, you guys aren't with the cops"

"We might as well be the cops, we're powerful enough to get you sent back to prison, to make you disappear. Either you cooperate or else"

"OK, or else what?"

"You'll die"

"Yeah right, you haven't done it yet, I bet I'm way too valuable an asset"

"You're being evaluated as we speak, Sombra. If you will not cooperate than we have no use for you"

"Well, I am cooperating..."

Sombra bragged about everything she had ever done. She treated the interrogation like a criminal job interview but they still held her. Soon she was back in her room bored out of her mind. Anonymous agents would periodically enter her compartment to give her food.

It had been weeks, Sombra sat bored with no computer and no electronic devices. There was no wireless signal for her to tap into, no outlets in the wall. Talon was aware of her abilities and had barred access to any electronic device or object deeming it far too risky. She had to ask permission to use the bathroom and even then a Talon agent blindfolded her and walked her to the bathroom then watched her. Talon had a plan for her but there seemed to be no plan at all. She had no idea how Talon worked or if Reaper and Widowmaker were mercenaries or agents or terrorists. This lack of knowledge frustrated her. Sombra was languishing in total withdrawal.

She was brought out of the room once again but it would be for the last time. After the attendants had seated her and wired her to a contraption Sombra snapped. "What the fuck are you people waiting for?" she shouted, "you've had me wired up to all this shit for weeks? What are you looking for huh?"

The interrogator was frustrated in kind. "Yes, we've been watching you for a long time now Sombra and we can't figure you out. You don't sleep, you don't eat, you lie—even when you think you are telling the truth you lie—you are inconsistent, you pump your body full of illegal drugs. Nothing motivates you. No one here can believe you are the person we heard about from Los Muertos. We thought Sombra was a hacker collective until agent Reaper informed us otherwise and we are very disappointed. How can we trust you to be reliable?"

"Look, you had to have known this before you nabbed me, why is this necessary?"

"You were caught, you failed. In order for us to sign a contract with you have to prove to us you will not compromise your mission"

"I was caught because I bragged, you know that"

"Exactly, what about your loyalty? There is an estimated 48.7 percent chance you will betray us based on everything you have said during your sessions. There is a 76.8 percent probability that you will compromise classified information and a 83.3 repeating percent chance you will steal or otherwise misuse Talon resources." The voice was sniveling and condescending. Sombra hated it.

"You know, I know how those algorithms your using work and they are not reliable"

"Why don't you escape? There is a 100 percent chance you would have tried according to our system but you have not"

"That's mathematically impossible," she said dismissively. "What do you want? Its because I don't care, what is hard to understand about this?"

The interrogator pulled away from the microphone. "See, she's depressive." He leaned back in, "your psychological profile says you suffer from mania, megalomania, kleptomania, manic depression. You're also nymphomaniacal. When was your last episode?"

"Its every time I use a computer so I've been feeling pretty dead lately"

"What about Los Muertos?"

"What about them? I work for them when they want me, now they don't seem to want me"

"How quickly you change loyalties," said a female voice.

Sombra laughed. "Fuck you, you're a bunch of mercenaries, what do you know?"

"You understand our frustration, Sombra. We would simply offer you money but that doesn't ensure your loyalty, we cannot brainwash or reprogram you since we need your intellectual abilities intact, we cannot threaten or torture you into compliance since you will likely resist until you die or betray us later. We've run the models"

The room was silent.

"OK, I'll say it again, I want to work for you people, I'm tired of being poor and living in a shit hole, I'm tired of my debt. Just let me work. I'm dying here"

Suddenly the door of the interrogation room burst open and Sombra felt someone remove her blindfold. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the high intensity light of the room, it was Reaper. There was hubbub in the observation room.

"I'm ending this now," Reaper said.

"About fucking time," she muttered.

Reaper shouted so the interrogators could hear, "you are compromising my mission by wasting everyone's time. She was my pick. I'll be vetting agent Sombra myself, my mission has high priority and I have the authority to use whatever means necessary to secure her loyalty. If she disobeys, I'll terminate her myself"

"Agent Reaper, you understand that you'r making your contract concomitant with hers. If she is in anyway disloyal or if you fail your mission you will be held responsible"

"Understood"

"Agent Sombra, you are being deployed, do not disappoint us"

"Yeah, fuck you too," she said pulling the wires off her finger. She turned to Reaper, "Jesus Christ, you could have done that along time ago"

That night they returned to the aircraft in the harbor and Sombra was briefed.

 _Talon is in international terrorist organization known for targeting omnic and human civilians to foment fear and discontent. Their long term strategic goals are unknown. Comprised mostly of mercenaries and operating almost exclusively through subsidiaries, Talon's leadership is a mystery. Well-funded by various anti-western governments, they have been involved in every major post-omnic crisis terrorist attack to date._

 _At this time, there is no actionable intel on Talon, all measures to fight Talon are purely reactive. It is not a question of how to prevent Talon from striking but when and whether or not the nation will be prepared._

That was the word on Talon Sombra had nabbed from a classified CIA memorandum. Sombra, however, knew who Talon was since nothing eluded her: their top members were connected to the now defunct Overwatch.

Reaper had gathered the team around a table in the common area of the aircraft. He had given Sombra their mission briefing. Reaper stood waiting as she scanned the document. It detailed Talon's plans and reasoning. Talon's newest target was Russia. A neo-Maoist faction in the Chinese government was expressing anxiety about Russia's increased economic and military self-sufficiency as well as increasing cooperation with the West in response to the Omnic Crisis. Anti-Western powers were especially nervous about Russia's new class of technological aristocrats.

Katya Volskaya was one such aristocrat. She had more money and power than God. She was unbelievably intelligent holding advanced degrees in economics, computer science and machine sociology. She had created an industrial firm from virtually nothing during the depression that followed the Omnic Crisis which was now a Fortune 500 company. Katya Volskaya represented an efficient and loyal oligarch but someone who was dangerous: she kept the focus on the global omnic threat rather than Russia's interests as a world power. Katya had to be eliminated.

Sombra put down the documents.

"So you are authorized to secure whatever assets and resources you need for this mission? Why me? How long have you been watching? No one can find me so how did you?"

"Talon's been aware of you for a while now, since you hacked Commissioner Rivera"

"I was just a kid then, what did you want with a kid?"

"You're a loner, you've never had family or real friends and you have incredible natural talent."

"You've had your body changed to make yourself into a more potent weapon," added Widowmaker.

"I hear Talon's into that," sneered Sombra.

"Yeah, that's how it is, you're Talon material"

"But what does Talon want? Where is the vision? I don't fight for just anyone _chabron_ "

Widowmaker laughed. "What your Los Muertos ideology? Please..."

"Yeah, what about it?" Sombra stood up, her feathers had been ruffled, "I have values, I want to know who's in charge so I can bring them down. I want a world free of bosses, police, and jails. I want to end poverty and racism. You think that's stupid, huh?"

" _Oh là là_ , so idealistic, you sound like an Overwatch buffoon," chided Widowmaker.

"You want to make it a fight you evil bitch?"

"Such a hypocrite, I'm frankly surprised"

"Everyone shut up. Sombra, maybe you want to look at what we're going to pay you"

Reaper handed her a tablet. Sombra watched the zeroes span the length of the page.

"Yeah, what's that in US dollars? I'm not an idiot," she handed the tablet back. Sombra could have calculated it instantaneously but couldn't help being a brat. Reaper grumbled, tapped on the tablet a few times and handed it back.

"I'm sure the revolution could use the money"

Sombra glared at the tablet then glared at Reaper. Widowmaker smiled on condescendingly.

"OK, I'm listening"

"So predictable," laughed Widowmaker.

"Not a word"

"I didn't say anything"

"Oh my God, shut up," growled Reaper.

Sombra made dagger eyes at Widowmaker then sat down.

"Glad we are all on board," said Reaper, "now, our mission is to assassinate Katya Volskya. Sombra you will provide intelligence, analysis and offensive computer security for this mission"

"Question: what is offensive computer security?"

"It's hacking, Sombra. You'll hack them."

"Did they remove your brain when they put that computer in your spine?"

"I don't know Widowmaker, I seem to have misplaced my ability to recognize bullshit fascist words for normal stuff along with my ability to not kick your ass"

Reaper cocked his head to the side.

" _Je suis content_ ," said Widowmaker detecting Reaper's impatience.

"Widowmaker and I will handle field operations. While we are deployed, Sombra will provide real-time battle assessment and command and control"

Widowmaker was shocked, "What?"

"Yeah, what?"

"You heard me, Sombra is a hacker, she will be expected to have superior situational awareness"

"What are her credentials? What is her experience? She's just a delinquent"

"Sombra's orchestrated bank robberies, stolen secure and classified information from corporate and government facilities undetected, she's manipulated the outcome of elections, she's broken people out of jail, facilitated hostage exchanges, she's hijacked ships and airplanes..."

"Yep, that's all me, not bad for a delinquent, eh?"

"I hate talking, do I need to go on?"

"No," Widowmaker pouted.

Sombra was tasked with making an untouchable woman dead. Her entourage included former Spetsnaz and Oman luminaries and decorated heroes from the Omnic Crisis, all unbelievably dangerous. The overall political climate made the mission especially hazardous. Russia was a tough nut to crack. It was paranoid about a second omnic crisis, it had clamped down in the war and disciplined its population including its elite. Surveillance was pervasive comparable only to the United States, the government kept secret lists of suspected omnics and foreign spies. Life was particularly difficult for omnics who were trafficked through illegally as labor or lived in secret in underground omnic slums or hives. There, in the hives, omnics lived close to the metal as true machines rather than people. They communicated by transmitting injunctives in machine code and organized themselves algorithmically to optimize heat, energy, space and labor. There was no time for religion or higher learning in omnic slums, indeed it was thought by omnics that living in a hive would cause one to lose their humanity. Humans could not tolerate the darkness, constant noise and heat of an omnic hive. The Russians were getting good at rooting them out before they gained the capacity to produce more omnics but their less politically and financially stable neighbors would not or could not do so, thus Russia used this as justification to build up militarily along its borders. The western allies responded in kind deploying a massive amount of forces to the Eastern Europe. Thus, the country was closed in a state of ultra-nationalism and paranoia.

Finding and killing Katya in this situation would not be easy.


	8. Chapter 8

Talon agents stationed nearby retrieved Sombra's computer from an evidence locker in a Mexico City police station. Her hive bots had valiantly run their self-destruct protocol when they detected that Sombra was missing for 72 hours. Each had a small packet of tiny explosives in them and they were programmed to jump onto her RAID array and self-destruct. Each of her hard-drives had a quarter sized hole exploded in them which would make life hard for the Mexican police. Other protocols made life a living hell for the cops. The remaining hive bots were programmed to hide in the desktop tower and jump on the foreheads of anyone who tried to open it up. After two highly paid and trained in-house security experts had neat holes exploded into their foreheads they were waiting for transfers.

Talon agents also retrieved what they could from her apartment which wasn't much. They tossed the remainder of her drug stash but returned her calavera drug box, some studded leather jackets, her shredded band shirts and jeans, spare components and circuit templates, her soldering tools, her tattoo gun and glow ink, a bunch of thick O'Reilly books in English covered in highlights and post-it notes and various computer science textbooks in Spanish in a similar condition.

"Aw man, I was really looking forward to my drugs," she said shaking out her calavera box.

"Talon policy," replied Reaper.

Sombra scratched the back of her head.

The space Sombra was moving into was tiny room on the second level of the aircraft behind the command center and cockpit. It was the least spacious, it tapered to the form of the aircraft's upper-deck.

"How can you live like this?" asked Widowmaker incredulously as she surveyed Sombra's stuff.

"I'm not even sure," Sombra noticed a Talon agent carrying her computer, "careful with that"

"Talon agents aren't movers..." sighed Reaper.

They dropped it suddenly sending it crashing to the floor. Sombra's hive bots teemed out.

"Aw, my babies," she cooed as they obediently lined up for her.

Sombra walked up to her computer, it was in rough shape. Her 3D printer and butterfly knife collection were gone as well as a few autographed Lucio EPs. She would have to make more hive bots, one of her favorite activities to do hung over. Which reminded her,

"Man, when can I get that drink?"

"Sombra, this is not a living space, you aren't moving in, this aircraft is an operations center, you can't just do drugs and drink in here"

Sombra leaned back on her bed and looked away as she gave Reaper the finger, " _Chupa me pendajo_ "

Widowmaker rubbed her forehead.

"You do not want to make him angry"

"Yeah, try me"

Reaper collapsed into a cloud and suddenly flowed onto Sombra's bed. A hand shot out of the cloudy mass onto Sombra's neck and began to choke her. As Reaper materialized he raised her higher.

"I've worked with Los Muertos before and you're all the same. You're just undisciplined punks, we can count on you for a riot but we ask you to do something real and you fall apart. All you respect is power but you touch it and crawl away because you wouldn't know what to do if you had it, you're so used to defying authority," Reaper tightened his grip, "Do you want to grow up or what? Do you want to be a spy or just a disobedient punk? Do you want to run the world or just slow things down for the people who do?"

Sombra gripped Reaper's armored fist, she couldn't speak. A gray fog was closing over her vision and she saw Reaper's mask disappear as her eyes rolled into her head.

"Well, what is it?" he said at last.

"Fine, I'll do it," she was barely able to creak out.

"Good answer," he replied as he dropped her.

Widowmaker exhaled a quick sigh before walking out.

Sombra rubbed her neck and coughed.

"And lose the bloody tattoos," Reaper growled before storming out.

Questions spun in Sombra's head. Was Talon running Los Muertos? Was there a Talon tendency in Los Muertos? These were stupid political questions. She wasn't with Los Muertos anymore. This had solidified it. But how did she not know already? It occurred to her that she had always just done whatever she wanted in the gang. She came up with plots and heists and gathered volunteers by visiting hangouts. Either that or she was recruited, often she would just go to a squat or hangout and wait for action. It was her impression that there was no leadership. Sombra no longer knew and it made her feel like a child: unsafe, uncertain. She walked over to her computer; her hive bots surrounded her and danced worriedly.

"I'm ok guys"

All it would take was a few repairs and she would find out who was running things around here.


	9. Chapter 9

With Sombra's computer set up she could start getting dirt on Katya. The arrangement was strange; however, Talon was relying on her to figure out the majority of the mission herself. The reason they had interrogated her, the trust issue, her payment all of this had to do with the unprecedented responsibility she would have. Talon knew nothing about Katya except what was publicly available. Katya was an immensely secretive woman and from Sombra's research she surrounded herself with a powerful and equally secretive entourage. For all their resources, spies and mercenaries, they would have to rely on entirely on Sombra. She was now in charge. Reaper knew it. Widowmaker knew it. Neither of them could shoot their way to Katya.

But there were a few things Sombra felt she had to get in order. Reaper was still officially in charge of the mission. The briefing was clear that he retained all executive authority in the mission. Earning his trust was key. This meant a gesture of good will.

Sombra posed herself in the mirror. "I hate to do it babies, they are my pride"

Her hive bots shuffled in response.

She took her shirt off and continued to inspect herself turning her back and looking over her shoulder. The skeletal tattoo spanned her entire body. She had gotten it in prison when there was nothing holding her life together besides Los Muertos. They meant everything to her, they had given her comradeship with strangers. But it was getting harder to go out with them. Los Muertos was shrinking. People with the tattoos were harassed by the cops and picked on by rival gangs. Deep down Sombra knew they were becoming a liability but she loved them all the same. When she felt she could not be herself Sombra would look in the mirror and she would become Queen of the Dead, they gave her power.

"I was just going to get these touched up," she said scratching her chest with her violet claw, "I can't believe I'm doing this"

Sombra slid her underwear partially off and inspected her pelvis. The tattoo continued on.

"This is going to suck," she sighed.

That day Sombra went to get her tattoos removed. She wasn't alone. Widowmaker covered her from the rooftops, ready to gun her down if it looked like she was fleeing.

"We have a lot of people coming in with your... condition," stated the nurse.

 _Cowards_ , thought Sombra.

"How extensive is it?"

"Ah well, it's my face, obviously, my back, my chest, my tits, then my stomach, my lower hip, my pelvis and then it goes lower to my-"

"We'll see soon enough," the nurse interrupted checking off multiple items, "your legs too?"

Sombra nodded.

"Feet?"

Sombra nodded.

The nurse shook her head as she marked items off on her tablet.

"Ok, I need you to put on this gown, the doctor will see you soon"

"Aye, this is taking forever!"

The nurse was gone, she disrobed and got into the gown. All this made Sombra terribly uncomfortable, she hadn't been to a doctor since she was in middle school. She was ready to bust heads if they asked too many questions.

"Ms. Correia," the doctor addressed Sombra.

She stared in thought.

"Ms. Correia?" he repeated.

"Oh sorry, was lost for a minute"

Sombra was surprised and mildly irritated the doctor was a man. Soon Sombra was sitting half-naked on an examination table. The doctor swallowed as he inspected her body feeling a distinct pang from being so close to Sombra but unable to have her. Sombra waited impatiently, somehow aware of his thoughts.

"Those... grafts, do they hurt?" he asked prodding her back.

"No"

"You don't want us to do anything about that do you?"

"No," Sombra sounded irritated, "just the tattoos"

"Was that done legally?" he asked skeptically.

"Yes. Why all the questions? Can you remove them or not?"

"Well, yes, we've just never had a patient with your case before"

"Just get it done!" Sombra snapped, "sorry, I just want them gone, bad memories"

She was lying, in fact she had scores of good memories of being in Los Muertos. It shamed her to take them off. She had loved her tattoos, especially in the dark surprising an unwary victim. It was her memento mori.

 _Well, if Talon goes south I can just get them done again._

"OK, normally we do this one section at a time and spread the treatment out over multiple days but you are in a rush and you say you won't mind the pain so we can do this all at once"

"Yeah"

"You don't mind being completely naked while we run the machine?"

"I said yes already! I'm naked now, do I look like I mind? Where's fucking the laser at? Just shoot me!"

In a few hours Sombra emerged from the office walking very stiffly covered head to toe in bandages. Widowmaker spotted her and chuckled to herself as she zoomed in her scope.

"Everything hurts," Sombra complained over her voice com, "my clit feels terrible"

"That will teach you to be so cocky"

"I heard that"

Back at the Talon aircraft Sombra was inconsolable.

"They said the risk of infection is massive"

Widowmaker snickered. Reaper stood silently.

"Hey, fuck you family, I did this for Talon," snapped Sombra, "it hurts to talk, you're lucky I'm even explaining this to you"

Widowmaker shook her head.

" _Ah là là_ , I'm not the one who decided to turn my privates into a glow stick rave"

"Glow stick, that's very funny, _chica_. Why don't we try fixing the pigment of your skin with a massive laser, huh?"

"Everyone, shut up. Sombra, good choice"

"Yeah, now at least one of us can not look like a freak"

Reaper cocked his head to the side.

"Rein it in," he said before disappearing.


	10. Chapter 10

Sombra was beginning to feel cooped up and felt way less badass than she thought for working for an international terrorist organization. All this was beginning to feel like a job and the lack of trust and leeway was grating on her. Sombra looked at herself. _I look terrible,_ she thought. Sombra went below and stood outside Reaper's door in her now somewhat blown out looking Los Muertos clothes.

Sombra knocked on Reaper's door with her bandaged hand. "Yo, Reaper. I'm going out"

"Out, for what?" Reaper growled.

"Clothes"

"Clothes, are you serious?"

"Yes, I am serious, I've been wearing the same bullshit since you captured me and held me against my will"

Reaper was silent.

"And before you say anything, yes I am salty about that"

"OK, I'm going with you"

Sombra groaned. "No way, I'm going alone. Besides I'm supposed to go with you and your mask on?"

"We still can't trust you"

"Who the hell do you think you are? You're treating me like a child!"

"I'm treating you like a dangerous hacker. Look you don't have to go with me, Widowmaker can go with you."

"You mean she can watch me from a roof top and shoot me if I run like last time?"

"Yes"

"How do you know you can trust her, huh?" she said walking into Reaper's room lowering her tone.

Widowmaker looked up from her coffee at the sound of her name.

"She killed her husband, you know that? I read the file"

"Out"

"Is there some Talon idol I can pray to or a hazing ceremony? What does it take to build trust around here?"

"Out!" Reaper repeated, raising his voice.

"I can't go with her, she's blue"

"Out!"

Widowmaker walked over to Sombra. It was an opportunity, she would take a chance on the girl maybe get to know her. Widowmaker had never associated with anyone like Sombra, she was strange to her. "I'm going with you, I just have to change," she stated.

Sombra made the stink eye at Widowmaker. "What are you going to do about the-"

"Blue? It's not a problem." Widowmaker pulled out a pill from her utility holster and popped it in her mouth. She swallowed and sighed.

"What the hell is that?"

"Amphetamines but somewhat different, it raises my heart-rate and forces blood into my extremities"

"This I have to watch," said Sombra bemused.

In the course of about 20 minutes Widowmaker's skin transformed to a healthy-perhaps a little rosy-white. Sombra was astonished. Widowmaker looked like a normal attractive person instead of a necrotizing shell of a human. She left and returned changed into some fashionable street clothes: a deep purple turtleneck belly shirt, a leather holster, fitted leather jacket, deep red skin-tight pants and black high heeled boots. Sombra gave her the up and down. _Really not bad,_ she thought.

"How do you feel?" asked Sombra.

"Almost alive, it's unbearable," Widowmaker said then smiled. She lit a cigarette as Sombra eyed her suspiciously.

"Just keep it together while we're out there"

They were out. Sombra was ditching her Los Muertos look for high tech counter-surveillance fashion. They headed for the fashion district. Next to Widowmaker, the image of Gallic composure, Sombra was a weird sight: skin tight yoga pants, her Los Muertos jacket, roller derby pads, a black tank top, unshaven legs and armpits, her unkempt dyed hair was losing its color and growing in unevenly. She was in bad shape. But Sombra had something in mind for her new look. Something that would bring her into the Talon fold.

They headed towards CASE, an expensive boutique that specialized in contemporary goth and cyberpunk fashion. Sombra kept her eye out for trouble, she didn't want to run into the cops or Los Muertos. When they arrived, Widowmaker scoffed.

"This is what you want to wear?" she said pointing to a manikin sporting a reflective cutoff hoodie and a weird asymmetrical haircut.

"Figures, ever hear of OpenCV? Facial recognition technology? No? This makes it so you can't be recognized"

" _D'accord_ , _ma puce._ If this is what you want." Widowmaker contained her laughter.

Sombra gave her the stink eye in response. "I don't make fun of your leotard..."

Sombra prayed she wouldn't see anyone she knew as they entered. The shop was 90's cyberpunk themed. The aesthetic was making a strong comeback in her country as it descended into a dystopian state. Leather trench coats and dusters lined the walls. Slim sunglasses were on display. The Matrix played back to back with Hackers with Spanish subtitles on an infinite loop throughout old television sets in the store. Neo was just in the middle of opening his copy of Simulacra and Simulation.

"The point of this is that it's practical, they sell some of this stuff to the military, you know"

"Mhmm," replied Widowmaker containing herself.

" _Aye yi yi_ , you are something." Sombra grabbed some sunglasses that sported facial recognition scrambling LED lights and put them on. "What do you think of this?"

"No, you shouldn't obscure your vision, _cherie_ "

Sombra kept them on and tried on a slim leather duster.

"No, I don't like it at all. You look like you're going to shoot up a school"

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Well you look like a Slovakian prostitute, just the same"

"I don't know why I can't do this alone," Sombra groaned, "OK, Widow, what would you wear?"

"Here?" Widowmaker gave Sombra the up and down then began to swivel her head looking around the shop. "Hmm, you should be mobile," Widowmaker disappeared and came back with a peculiar piece of athletic wear.

"Skin tight and purple, I should have guessed"

Sombra went to a changing room and tried it on. It felt like it fit her a little unevenly with the hardware on her back but was designed to be used with a wearable keyboard. Nothing she couldn't fix. _I can work with this_ , she thought. She emerged to meet Widowmaker's gaze. Immediately she judged.

"It's OK. For you, you may have the body for it, they all just have these... horrible toes," Widowmaker fumbled as she complisulted her.

Sombra wiggled her toes. "Nah, I like the toes, I won't need shoes. But I don't like that I feel naked."

Widowmaker gave a look that was halfway between a smile and a frown that seemed to say, "really?"

Sombra picked out a large brown hooded jacket and put it on. "How about this?" The brand, Stealth Wear, claimed it could disrupt thermal sensors. Widowmaker shook her head. Sombra gave an exasperated sigh.

"Well, at least make sure it matches," said Widowmaker searching for a purple version. "Here," she tossed one to Sombra.

Sombra switched jackets and walked to a mirror. It was quite an outfit. She posed herself, giving a superior look. "You know, I really look like someone. I'm tossing my other junk." She eyeballed the clerk. "Widow, make yourself useful and talk to the guy over there"

Widowmaker was game. She approached the goateed store clerk and started to make small talk. She stood elegantly, delicately touching the nape of her neck as she talked. The man was captivated. Sombra searched the pockets of the coat for magnetic strips and RFID tags. She found one. Sombra pressed her finger against it and fried the emitter then began pulling off the tags. Soon they were out and no one was the wiser.

Next Sombra felt a mighty need for makeup. They promenaded to a high fashion joint. This one specialized in high-end make up. However, across the street she saw a few Los Muertos people killing time.

 _Traitors_ , she thought to herself. She couldn't afford to be recognized, she had to do something.

"OK, wait out here, this will be fast"

Sombra broke the window of a nearby car. The alarm began to blare. The Los Muertos people jumped in surprise. She opened the door from the inside and began to pound on the steering column to break it open. In a moment she was fumbling with some exposed wires, Adolfo had taught her how to do this long ago well before she had augmented her body, with her improvements this would be a piece of cake.

"Stand back and try to look panicked," said Sombra.

"I am already," Widowmaker replied.

Sombra held a jumble of wires in her fist pulsing electricity into the car then ran to cover. After a second the engine detonated and a crowd of people quickly gathered. Los Muertos fled in the action not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Widowmaker expertly added to the confusion by yelling in French at the nearest person she could find in the distraught crowd. Sombra slinked into the boutique and started pocketing as much purple and violet makeup as she could find. As the chaos unfolded she nonchalantly found a mirror and began to apply copious amounts of violet makeup to her face. After a few moments she walked back out and grabbed Widowmaker. She was shocked.

"You look like you were punched in the face"

"We're leaving," replied Sombra as police sirens began to approach.

Back on the aircraft Widowmaker set behind Sombra as she buzzed her hair.

"How do you feel?" asked Widowmaker, her skin restored to its usual unusual color.

"Like a villain"

Widowmaker gave a dark chuckle. "You still look like a punk. I don't understand this haircut. I don't understand the makeup"

"Well, I don't understand the tattoos and leotard but maybe if I had a butt like yours..."

"Careful," said Widowmaker narrowing her eyes, "remember that I don't like you"

"What it was just your drugs that made you help me pick out clothes?"

Widowmaker thought back to the day. It was odd, she usually used the drug for infiltration missions, its effects made her feel uncomfortably fleshy or embodied but this time she felt different, she felt normal. She shook it off.

"Exactly"

"OK then, I see our relationship will be strictly professional"

It occurred to Widowmaker that she wasn't aware of what she was doing. She was doing another person's hair. She hadn't touched another human being except to hurt them in a long time. Widowmaker put the razor down.

"You're one of us now but that means being alone. After this mission we will go our separate ways. If Talon deems it necessary we will work together again"

Sombra hadn't considered what she was trying to be a part of.

"So everyone who works for Talon does so unwillingly?"

Widowmaker delicately brushed off the hair around the back of Sombra's neck. She eyed it conspicuously. _Spiders eat their children,_ she thought. "Talon has a plan, they always find you if they need you, if not they let you be." Widowmaker stood up and brushed herself off. "But I think you will find the work most satisfying. Just don't get in their way"

Sombra took that as her cue to stand. She rose and turned to face Widowmaker. She looked her in the eye for a long moment. Sombra looked savage: the thick makeup on her sleepless eyes brought out her brow and incisive gaze, she looked at once exhausted and innervated.

"Don't think for a moment that I can't get out of here when I want to," she said with a furrowed brow.

"I'd like to see you try," replied Widowmaker flatly.

The two women glared at each other for a long while before Sombra decided to break. She had wanted to get a rise from her, or intimidate her just to make her feel something but it was clear that she was an impenetrable woman. Sombra would have to find another time to one-up her.

"Strange family," said Sombra before retiring to her room.


	11. Chapter 11

Sombra began her research. Katya maintained social media accounts but left no information about where and when she might be making public appearances. The news spoke abstractly about her activities. There was nothing traceable about her. Sombra was frustrated. American CEOs had such big personalities and were so self-aggrandizing: giving paid speeches, attending charity events, giving endorsements and appearing on the news. Katya was so... modest by comparison. Sombra looked for any trace of a Volskaya industries corporate account on the Internet. She cross-referenced leaked gmail account credentials to Volskaya industries users. The company was locked down. Every employee of any import had multi-factor identification. She would need physical access to a Volskaya industries computer. The only way Sombra could think to do this was to knock over a company building.

"What happened to you?" asked Reaper upon seeing Sombra's new look.

"I'm ditching the gang colors"

"You look-," started Reaper.

"Intense? Badass?" chuckled Sombra eyeing her cuticles, "yeah, the smoky makeup does that"

"Ridiculous"

Sombra frowned. She would get revenge by telling Reaper the bad news. "We have to get a Volskaya industries computer. They are too locked down for me to do anything remotely. I've targeted a building I think is vulnerable in Moscow"

"Not now, we have a mission. We're going to Nepal, theres a lead on our target. Our contact is a Shambali monk named Zenyatta. Talon says he knows something and wants to talk"

Sombra was completely irritated, she had wanted to one up Reaper and he had just overridden her. "I didn't have anything to do with this, I didn't vet this lead. You haven't let me work. We should follow my plan first"

"You know the arrangement, I have the final word"

Sombra gave an irritated huff. "Do you know this guy?"

"This comes from Talon"

"Well, it sounds like a trap."

"That's why you are coming" stated Reaper, "another thing, he's an omnic. Read these files"

Reaper threw down a folder. Sombra picked it up and quickly scanned the contents.

"Jesus, you guys killed his brother," said Sombra, "why would he talk to you?"

"Zenyatta is not like his brother. He represents a very different strand of the Omnic Rights movement"

Sombra continued to skim the files. Her eyes widened. "Oh, this is too good, he had his own brother killed"

"He'll talk to us but not to Widowmaker"

After a long flight, Talon touched down in western Nepal outside an ancient Shambali temple. The hotly contested Indian, Russian, Chinese border was only a little farther to the North-West. Holes from machine gun bullets still riddled the old Buddhist statues. During the Omnic crisis the original Buddhist inhabitants were forced out by the advancing machine army. The temple stood atop a mountain above a small village which had gone mostly unchanged for hundreds of years. Now it was a model for a revolutionary new society with humans and omnics living together peacefully in a spiritual lifestyle. Ragtag human and omnic soldiers carrying AK-47's and other 20th century weaponry met them as they landed and escorted them up the mountain to the temple.

They soon entered Zenyatta's room. The calming smell of prayer incense engulfed the room. He sat ahead of them with his back turned in meditation. He faced them.

"Leave us," said Zenyatta gesturing to the guards.

"You too Corporal Reyes." Reaper cocked his head to the side in mild annoyance. "Just the girl. I insist." Reaper shot a threatening look at Sombra before he left. Sombra shrugged in response. After the door slammed shut behind him and a figure stepped out. In a flash, a blade was at Sombra's throat.

"This is my student, Genji. He is like you"

"How do you-," started Sombra.

Suddenly Sombra's eyes widened. She felt something tap her brain stem. Millions of 32 bit-wide hexadecimal codes were transmitted into the device mounted on Sombra's spinal column. In that instant Sombra knew exactly what the omnic wanted to communicate but there was something else. A scene flashed before her eyes, a woman looking out apprehensively from under a hood then the barrel of a gun firing directly at Sombra's face then nothing. The scenes unfolded for what felt like an eternity then stopped.

"What did you just-?"

"I wasn't expecting someone like you, you have given me the opportunity to give much more than I expected"

Genji withdrew his blade.

"Apologies, we couldn't allow you to interrupt the transmission, it was necessary to surprise you," said Genji with a pronounced Japanese accent.

Zenyatta gestured. "You may signal to your colleague that he may come in"

Sombra walked outside and grabbed Reaper.

"Sorry for my impropriety, Corporal. Sombra will explain to you why it was necessary. Now let's turn to business"

Reaper shifted.

"Though all omnics are engaged in the great struggle. We are not of one mind..."

Zenyatta detailed several omnic and human assassination targets. They were a collection of omnic and human politicians, CEOs, militants, and activists that Zenyatta believed were working to deradicalize and mainstream the Omnic Right's movement. Now in control, Zenyatta believed that striking at the movement's liberal tendency and blaming it on their enemies would radicalize people and galvanize their base. Before he was assassinated, Mondatta had wanted to model Omnic Rights after the Tibetan independence movement but Zenyatta had correctly noted that that movement _still_ had not achieve its goal. As much as it pained Zenyatta, he realized that Mondatta was content to be a spiritual leader, not a revolutionary, and was responsible for the movement's stagnation. It was this that led him to tragically conclude that Mondatta had to be eliminated and become a martyr. Only he, Reaper and Widowmaker knew the secret. Great effort was expended to place the blame solely on Talon. But Sombra somehow knew all this already.

Suddenly an exhausted fighter burst in and kneeled before Zenyatta. Zenyatta beckoned him to stand, he frantically turned and spoke to the Talon operatives. "A satellite detected your ship _,_ they've been tracking you, they are on their way"

"Who?" demanded Reaper.

"We don't know but there are many of them. My brothers say they flew from Kashmir"

"Friends, it looks like our visit will have to be cut short," stated Zenyatta.

He beckoned them outside. As they left the prayer room a missile struck a nearby truck. The group was thrown to the ground by the sudden explosion. Whoever they were, they were here.

The camp lit up with activity. Militants scrambled to defensive positions as they rang the ancient temple bell as a warning alarm. It was a raid.

"Overwatch?" asked Sombra recovering from the blast.

"No, Russians perhaps Chinese," replied Zenyatta unfazed.

They were indeed Russian. By 2070 Russia had reclaimed Kazakhstan and the lower steppes countries and laid a claim to the Kashmir region. In their own minds Nepal was perfectly within Russia's and its allies' jurisdiction. Russian surveillance drones and satellites continually scoped the region for omnic camps.

Russian dropships swooped over the temple preparing to land troops. Rebels took up positions in the shops and houses surrounding the town square, the most likely dropzone. They fired on the ships as they landed. The Russian's responded by opening up with anti-material rounds and plasma fire. The rebels were hosed down in moments. More rushed from every part of the town to reinforce as SPETZNAZ troops stormed out from the ships and onto the scene.

Reaper turned to Zenyatta threateningly. "You knew," he said.

"No my friend. Although, how do I know you did not?"

"We didn't," Reaper asserted.

Zenyatta hovered silently.

" _Orale_ , lets speed this up or we're gonna die out here"

"She's right," said Zenyatta, "it does not matter now, we must fight our way out"

Russian forces were trying to make their way to the temple. The rebels moved to encircle the Russian landing zone, setting up mortars and machine gun posts to fight for every inch of the town. Amidst the chaos, the pink haired commander of the Russian special forces stepped out of a dropship and surveyed the battle. She was a mountain of a woman wearing a massive armored chest plate, boots and leggings but keeping her massive arms unprotected. Her armor was patterned with winterized digital camouflage and she sported an imperious 512 tattoo on her well developed left arm. There was no doubt she was in control of the situation.

"I want this place secured and find the leader, I want to interrogate it myself," she ordered.

"Yes, commander Zarya!" shouted her lieutenant.

A rocket propelled grenade flew past Zarya's head and exploded behind her. She was unfazed, even amused.

"Get me my gun, lieutenant"

"Yes, ma'am!"

She stood tall as a crew transporting a large unusual firearm on a hover dolly emerged from a dropship. They struggled to lift and drop it at her feet. The woman clapped her hands vigorously before grabbing the heavy weapon. Several rebels spotted the unmistakable woman by her hair and fired from a rooftop. They fired a shoulder mounted RPG. The rocket impacted near her producing a huge explosion and obscuring smoke and dust. Suddenly, a huge sphere of energy burst from the cloud and arced towards the rebels exploding on impact. Their position was annihilated.

"Pah, useless," she stated cockily as the dust cleared.

Reaper watched from the vantage of the temple.

"Her," growled Reaper to Sombra, pointing at the muscular woman as she joined the advancing forces, "stop her"

The Russians were pushing the Rebels out of the town and into the area around the temple. Talon and their Shambali companions rushed down the narrow stone passages on the mountain to get to the battle below. They emerged in the street to witness a section of fleeing rebels get gunned down by Russian plasma fire. Genji was the first to act. He charged into the group of pursuing soldiers, catching them off balance by his sudden force. Their formation fell apart as they tried and failed to evade his unpredictable cuts. The retreating rebels took the opportunity to get to cover and riposte.

Zarya witnessed her troops scrambling away from Genji.

"That little man, get him," she commanded.

Her squad focused their fire. Genji swiftly dodged, drawing their fire away from the rebels. Reaper dematerialized into a noxious cloud and flowed towards a separate section of enemy troops. The awestruck soldiers watched the cloud flow in the middle of their formation and materialize into a horrible apparition of a man. Reaper drew his shotguns from inside his coat and unleashed a hailstorm of bullets. Their heads one by one struck the paved stone, dead.

"Pathetic," muttered Reaper as he threw down his empty guns.

Zarya noticed the counterattack and fired a stream of energy at Reaper. He disintegrated and the stream passed through harmlessly. _Impossible,_ Zarya thought. Genji took the opportunity to strike while she was surprised but Zarya was on the spot. She saw him, turned and fired. The warrior managed to dodge. The stream hit air but Zarya leveled and chased Genji with it, blasting rebel soldiers as they got in the way.

A rebel technical moved in to engage. They mounted up and fired the truck's old heavy machine gun.

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

The fire from the heavy rounds shook the ground, they were designed to take out armored aircraft. Zarya deployed her shield and they impacted. In that moment the crew comprehended that they had made a terrible mistake: the impact of the heavy bullets on the shield caused Zarya's armor glow bright blue with power and course with electrical activity. Her armor hummed with power.

"My turn," said Zarya as electricity danced across her armor. She unleashed a blast of plasma and the technical and crew were obliterated.

Reaper witnessed the explosion. _That weapon,_ he thought. He couldn't focus on Zarya and the troops at the same time and despite their efforts the rebel position was collapsing. _Where is Sombra?_

The violence made her electric. Sombra scrambled spider-like across the scene of the battle, running and leaping from cover to cover to get close. Soon Sombra was on top of the musclebound woman. "Lights out," she shouted as she fired her EMP in range of the weapon. The woman attempted to fire at Sombra. She pulled the trigger. Nothing. She tried again. Nothing. She tried multiple times before throwing it down in frustration. Its circuits were fried. Sombra stood there amused. _So that's how that works,_ she hadn't ever found a reason to use her EMP until now.

"You brat of a woman," said the pink haired woman.

With her gun useless she charged at Sombra with her fists winding up and diving for her. Sombra dodged and the woman was caught off balance. But Sombra was clearly intimidated. If Zarya connected with her or managed to grab her, she would break Sombra's back.

"A little help here, guys," Sombra called out nervously as Zarya prepared another assault.

Years of street fighting told Sombra that acting scared was a sure fire way to invite contempt. You must always be the aggressor. She decided not to wait for her and pounced at the woman slashing at her with her razor sharp nails. Zarya backed off and shook out her shoulder. It had been slashed in the attack.

"So you are fast," marveled Zarya stretching her shoulder, "impressive, but not good enough"

"Guys, seriously," said Sombra as she felt herself become surrounded.

Russian support was arriving. Zarya closed in on her and came in swinging, her firsts flew past Sombra's head like heavy logs but Sombra ducked and dodge. Without a weapon there was no way that Sombra could do any damage to this woman's armored body. She had no escape. Sombra cursed herself as she tried to avoid her blows.

"Coming in," said Reaper as he poured on to the scene and materialized next to Sombra.

Zarya stepped back in surprise. She was clearly intimidated by Reaper but she had them, they were completely surrounded.

"Men, fire at will!" shouted the muscular woman.

Sombra hit the dirt and the Russians blasted Reaper with every round of ammunition they had for what felt like a minute minute. Smoke seemed to empty out of his body on each hit.

"My turn," he growled.

Reaper pulled his shotguns from his coat, now ragged and burnt from plasma fire, and one by one unloaded into the soldiers as they tried to reload. Zarya watched as her crack special forces were destroyed. _No,_ thought Zarya.

"I need air support, danger close" she called out into her radio.

Russian close air support swooped in and riddled the scene with plasma fire. Reaper disappeared into smog and Sombra. Shambali rebels manned their Cold War era anti-aircraft guns and began firing at the low flying enemy aircraft. But Zarya was not out of tricks, she ran to a support crew manning a massive machine gun.

"I'm taking over" she said picking up the gun with some but ultimately little effort.

The crew looked at each other astonished. Zarya unloaded at the Talon agents. Sombra and Reaper were barely able to dive to cover. They were pinned down by Zarya's fire.

" _Joder_ , I hate this woman," cursed Sombra keeping her head down. "Where the hell is Widowmaker?"

Suddenly, a foot planted itself near her head. She looked up. It was Genji. He slowly approached the stream of fire and raised his sword.

"What the hell is he doing?" shouted Sombra.

"He does this," replied Reaper.

"Ha, someone wants to play hero," laughed the woman, "much obliged"

She fired. Genji, with machine efficiency, moved his sword with precise timing to block each bullet. The speed of his movements and the impact of the bullets caused the steel to bend and vibrate rendering an unusual sound reverberating sound. After the burst was over, Genji, unscathed, let out a yell and immediately leapt towards the woman with inhuman speed. His sword was at her neck. It took a second for Zarya to realize what had happened.

"You are beaten. Withdraw your forces," Genji asserted.

Soldiers began to take up positions around them readying their weapons.

"We'll call it a draw," she said narrowing her eyes.

Genji looked over his shoulder and understood the situation. "You have a deal," he said sheathing his weapon.

"Men, stand down," ordered Zarya, "I always keep my word"

The battle was over. 30 militants and 20 Russian soldiers had been killed, countless others were injured. The Russians were allowed to collect their dead and wounded under rebel surveillance and withdraw. Curiously, Zenyatta was gone. Having escaped in the chaos to another site, Sombra was left with no explanation as to what he had done.

Talon returned to the aircraft and debriefed.

"We were set up," said Reaper as he pounded his fist on the table.

"Actually-," started Sombra.

"What? You think we can trust Zenyatta?"

"I'm not sure, we have to see if his intel is good"

"What intel?"

"He flashed it into my brain stem. He gave me a picture of Katya," she admitted.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"He knows or knew where Katya is." She was bluffing. "I don't know what it means yet, it's encoded but I can use it to find Katya"

"That's not good enough," shouted Reaper, "the mission is compromised. How are we supposed to get into Russia? We can't use this plane"

"I'm sure the great and powerful Talon organization can find us a way into Russia. We just have to be light on our feet"

"Right," Reaper took off his mask and rubbed whatever made up his face.

A quick shot of fear ran through Sombra's body. She realized this wasn't an even negotiation. What would happen to her if they abandoned the mission? She would be worthless. They would dump her body in some Asiatic desert.

"Give me a chance to decode the data, besides we are just getting started. I can find Katya without Zenyatta's help," she pleaded.

Reaper stood silently thinking to himself, they needed to make up for this lost time. "You have 2 days," he said.

"I need 5 days"

"You have 3 days"

"Fine"


	12. Chapter 12

Russia had a long arm. Talon would not be able to stay in Nepal, supposedly neutral territory. Not wanting to test the hospitality of their Russian friends they flew below radar into the frontier provinces of Pakistan. The substantially weakened and Pakistani government would have little to say about where they were allowed to land. Talon could operate here with little interference as long as they were not detected by either the U.S. or Russians.

Sombra had very little time before she would have to bring Talon some actionable intel. She began her work.

Sombra studied Zenyatta's information to no avail. She beat her head against the problem for hours.

"I wish I had speed," she complained, her hive bots shuffled in consolation.

She was getting nowhere and she wasn't impressing Talon. Sombra looked at her hive bots and imagined their hardware piping instructions through its circuits in perfectly timed cycles according to a ordered machine rationality.

Perhaps thinking like a human was not the way to solve this.

Sombra set up image recognition software and compared the photograph to Russian surveillance photos of known hive omnic hives. Most of them had become akin to dying ant colonies: they were heavily optimized but slowly losing energy over time as they took in omnic refugees. A few were thriving on geothermal energy, others in scuttled soviet era nuclear powered warships. The heat and radiation were used in bizarre ways power highly optimized omnic societies. It was not unusual to see strange tech come out of such places. Evolutionary algorithms would devise unusual weapons, computer hardware or tools using non-standard circuitry and designs meant purely for use by other machines for survival. It was a theoretical question when it came to reverse engineering technology designed by machine consciousness. Only a genius could comprehend how the infinitely varied, self-improving and modular omnic components would be used in the hive.

The existence of an omnic hive produced a remote chance that it would engulf the planet and eventually the solar system. Every hive, when it reached critical mass, would try to drill to the Earth's core for energy. A large enough hive would produce seismic activity that could create massive sinkholes or earthquakes. The Russian government would fill in hives as if they were ant mounds, they would drop EMP charges or nuclear warheads into the hives and then pour molten iron in to seal the cap. Russia made this her grim work for the sake of protecting the planet from being engulfed by the machine horde.

There was one probable location the photo was taken: 0x00000000000C or C for short was the site of a human/omnic hive, an unusual occurrence but the only hive a human and an omnic could meet comfortably. The humans who lived there voluntarily augmented themselves to live with Omnics while the Omnics curiously maintained a humanoid form and way of life that wasn't given over to the euphoria of constant optimization and collective consciousness. The city was underground to avoid Russian surveillance drones so it was impossible to match the data from the photograph.

Sombra was stumped. She was sure that photo was taken somewhere in the hive. But who had taken it? There was no information in the photo that marked that it was taken with a specific camera. In fact, the data made it look more like a rendering. Noticeably there was tons of extra information that did not pertain to the photograph. Perhaps it was the key to understanding the rest of the data.

She needed help. There was only one soul she knew who could handle human interfacing with omnic data like this.


	13. Chapter 13

Sombra didn't know how to handle the data. Figuring out how to decode the omnic data like this was a theoretical problem, she was a hacker not a scientist. There was one person she knew with the know-how but Sombra had a policy of never revisiting connections like those. She would have to make an exception.

Sombra sent a text message to Morin. "Hey, it's me, mystery girl. I need to ask a favor." She saw her typing but received nothing. She sent another. "I have some omnic data I need decoded. It's an emergency."

 _Shit_ , thought Sombra, _this is a horrible idea_. Sombra watched Dr. Morin him-and-haw over her message.

"I'm assuming it's serious since I know you wouldn't have asked for this otherwise," she wrote. A few more seconds passed. Sombra was reeling from the awkward stilted conversation. She hated every moment of this feeling of dependency. "I'll do it but I want to see you again" she wrote finally.

 _Too easy_ , Sombra thought.

Sombra uploaded the information to a secure server and gave Morin a temporary encryption algorithm. This was obviously not the most secure way of handling it, normally she would physically deliver such keys but Sombra was pressed for time. She trusted that with Morin's line of work and savvy she kept her phone dark.

"I'm assuming I can't contact you at this number again"

"Correct, I'll be in touch"

Sombra ended the exchange. _Nothing to do now but wait_.

It had been a few days, it was time to see if Morin had come up with something. She sent her a text.

" _Amiga_ "

"No, we're vid-chatting this time"

Sombra cursed and set up a secure line. Soon she was looking at Morin's pierced face. She looked exhausted and wore a concerned expression.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Morin looked irritated at this response.

"You are fine, huh?"

"Did you do it or what?"

"Yeah, I did it. By the way-", Dr. Morin pressed a button and the image Zenyatta sent her of Katya appeared, "You'd have to be an idiot to not see a picture of Katya Volskya. I don't know what you're involved in so just leave me out"

"Don't worry, it doesn't concern you"

"Don't worry? This doesn't concern me? I worked on this for three days straight because I thought you were in danger! I don't know who the hell you think you are but if you think you can make me work for free you are a narcissistic bitch"

"So tell me what you found, we had a deal"

"OK but after this we are having a chat"

Morin switched the screen back to herself and exhaled.

"Inside this image there are statistical values which predict the direction certain pixels will go. I assumed this was output from a neural network and used it to look at your other data. The multi-dimensional arrays from your other file are tensors containing RELU values used as graph nodes. The data is not compressed or encrypted, it represents states that a neural network can take. It's a slice of a larger network."

"I'm not so good on high level theory. My understanding is more... intimate"

Morin shook her head.

"It's all the statistically possible states of the omnic that took that photograph's mind. I don't know what the data is, you have to plug it into a network with the same properties as the one that generated it but something tells me that if you do you'll figure out what happened to the omnic that took that photo"

"What about the image?"

"Try using some of the outputs as a bit-mask for the image, it might render the rest of the scene for you. The dictionary should map 1-to-1. I'm sure you can figure out what goes where. There is also a shit ton of other data here that doesn't correspond to words or images. I can't help you there"

"So what do I do?"

"I dunno, hacker, set up an omnic neural network and show it the picture"

"OK, that's not exactly easy, an omnic neural network is like a person"

"I don't know, you're supposed to be a genius, figure it out," Morin began to look angry again. "This is the first I've heard from you and you ask me to do this? Do you have any idea how unfair this is? I don't even know your name!"

"It's Vicki"

"Bullshit."

"Otto"

"Ok, 'Otto.' What's going on? What do you have to do with Katya Volskya? What happened to your tattoos, to your hair?"

Sombra's head reeled from the flurry of questions. She was just about done with her.

"It's none of your business"

"Look, I'm helping you out because I thought you were in trouble"

"It's your choice _amiga_ , this whole thing has been your choice. I could have done this myself, you're just pushing me along"

"Bullshit. You don't have the education, frankly. I can't believe you. You are acting so manipulative"

"Sorry, this is who I am"

"When can I see you?" she blurted out suddenly.

Sombra smiled. Morin was possibly a genius but she was a very naive girl. "I don't know, I'm out of the country. I can't see you until I've finished my business"

"You-," Morin fumed, "I'm sorry I ever worried about you"

"You're taking this very seriously. Besides you hardly know me. You're right, you don't even know my name. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Morin's eyes widened. Sombra had her.

"I thought we could be friends. I thought we had a connection"

Morin's eyes cooled, she felt she had just made a fool of herself. She knew that she was an opportunist with few scruples, why had she persuaded herself otherwise?

"You are not wrong," said Sombra inspecting her nails, "it will just be on my terms. In fact, I think you will find we are more connected than you thought"

"What do you mean?" Morin's eyes became angry and fearful. "You wouldn't dare"

"Why? It's too mean? Too cruel? Try me _amiga_ "

"Never talk to me again"

Morin attempted to close the program but it wouldn't close.

"It's just better to do away with pretense, you know the person I am, you know it's been this way the whole time"

"No"

Morin covered her eyes.

"And I might have more favors to ask in the future"

"No," she said letting her head slip down into her arms.

"And if you want to keep your business going, I recommend you do them without asking too many questions"

"No!" she shouted before breaking down into tears.

"There there," mocked Sombra, "I'll be seeing you soon enough. I promised"

"You bitch," she shouted, "I don't want to look at you." Morin pulled the plug on her computer.

Sombra stared into space for a moment then ran her fingers through her hair. _That went well,_ she thought.

"What do you think babies?"

The hive bots danced slowly in response.

"We'll have to pay her a visit when all this is over"


	14. Chapter 14

Sombra followed Morin's advice. After some fiddling she illegally set up an omnic neural network and loaded the data. The mapped outputs were be piped into her own nervous system. Sombra wasn't sure if this was stupid or not, she heard this caused some people to become epileptic but she wanted this done quickly, she didn't want to sift through a huge data dump. She activated it and showed the network the picture. The omnic's thoughts were completely hers.

Suddenly Sombra was miles underground in the cool static air and low light of an omnic hive. The small of ozone engulfed her. She hid in the shadows as two figures met. The first was Katya, the hooded woman from the picture, the second was an omnic named 0x75d102c who went by the name Weir. Sombra knew who he was: he was a traitor selling out omnic tech.

"The omnium has received the funds. It's time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain." said Katya as a piece of nearby machinery reconfigured itself, "Make it quick omnic, I don't like this place"

"Yes, this particle shield generator is from a very advanced hive. We've never seen anything like it. It's funny what kind of ingenuity emerges when you take away intelligence and resources. If you hadn't been willing to facilitate this deal it's likely you would have only learned about it in the next war," the omnic revealed the component, it glowed an eerie green.

"I think it is in both our interests that never happens," Katya took the levitating object.

"Traitor," Sombra felt herself say but the utterance sounded alien, it was masculine and distorted as if synthesized.

Anger coursed through her body, she gripped the handle of the pistol in her hand and stepped out hiding. Katya saw her.

"You guaranteed no one knew-," Katya began to shout but she was interrupted by several gun shots.

The omnic collapsed. One bullet had penetrated into his skull. Sombra was stunned, she had never killed before. No that couldn't be true it was the omnic that had never killed before. Katya reacted swiftly and pulled out a pistol. Sombra turned to see Katya aiming her pistol at her head. A feeling of dread and guilt engulfed her. Katya fired, as she watched the bullet close in on her she assured herself that this had been the right thing to do, that she had helped people and that her life had been worth living then she saw nothing.

Sombra gripped at the connection in her back. Suddenly, Sombra felt her body-her real body-twist. Jumbled information was throttling her nervous system, she was having a seizure. Intense pain gripped her body and she grasped for the cord in her back. Her vision was engulfed in white as she felt every muscle tense up. Suddenly, her body bucked and the connection was severed. She collapsed on the floor.

Slowly she started laughing.

Zenyatta had given her the last memories of the omnic that assassinated Weir. He was some sort of strung out omnic activist who had finally snapped.

Sombra began to realize what she had and her laughing intensified: she had everything she needed to blackmail Katya Volskaya. Katya was clearly buying omnic technology. Russia had strict laws against using omnic technology since the potential for one omnic circuit to carry enough bytes of an omnic God consciousness to cause total mayhem was there. Besides a few cities and hives like Numbani, human and omnic technology was kept separate by a host of legal and technical standards. If Katya was found out she would be tried as a criminal in international courts.

Zenyatta had done her a huge favor but why? She felt that he benefited whether Katya was dead or alive. Was she being manipulated by Zenyatta?

It didn't matter. This was power, not only could she decide Katya's fate she could get Talon to help her do it.


	15. Chapter 15

Sombra was in a tough spot. Her three days were up. The only thing she had was that Zarya was a member of Katya's entourage. This was an adequate lead to go on but it was clear this wouldn't be enough for Reaper.

The aircraft was tense, Reaper and Widowmaker paced and tended to their weapons while Sombra worked. Neither of them was accustomed to not knowing what to do.

"I wonder what will happen to our Sombra?" thought Widowmaker aloud after checking the time. She loaded her rifle.

"I have intel," said Sombra bursting out of her room.

"Oh?" said Reaper looking up from his shotgun.

"Zarya is close with Katya Volskaya"

"What does that do for us?"

"Well, Reaper, she will know how to get to Katya. She probably meets and is in regular communication with Katya..."

"I get it"

"What do we need to do?"

"Well, _chabron_ , we need to get their attention. Then, when we see our friend Zarya again, we bug her and wait for her to talk to Katya"

Reaper thought to himself for a moment and decided he wasn't impressed.

"This is not intel, you're stalling"

Reaper stood up.

 _Puto_ , thought Sombra, _busted_. His imposing figure made its way across the aircraft to towards Sombra.

"No no no, Reaper-," Sombra held her hands out and backed up defensively. Soon Reaper was on top of her.

"You're out of time," Sombra went to protect her throat but Reaper grabbed her by the collar, "You better have more than a lead," he menaced as he tightened his grip.

"Look, you wanted me to think like a spy, not a hacker," said Sombra as Reaper lifted her off the ground, "you have too much faith in computers, I can't pull the information out of thin air. I need something to work with"

"Either you are lying or you really are incompetent," said Reaper shaking her violently.

"No, I swear, I tried to decode Zenyatta's information, its totally omnic, its not human readable"

"She's lying," Widowmaker introjected, "she knows more than she's telling"

Reaper threw Sombra to the ground, "Thought so. You better start talking"

"What, you trust her more than me?" said Sombra wiping blood off her lip.

"Is that even a question?" replied Widowmaker.

Reaper stepped in to grab Sombra again but she dodged and quickly stood up.

"OK OK, Look, I decoded _some_ of what Zenyatta sent me. There's not enough information in it. It shows that Katya was visiting an omnic hive but it doesn't say where her current location is"

"What was she doing there?"

"I don't know! I haven't fully decoded it!" she shouted, "come on, a little trust. You have to give me time to work"

Reaper thought silently for a moment.

"Fine, but we're moving on Zarya—now"

"No, if we move back into Russian territory she'll just destroy us. You saw what happened"

"Sombra..." he started reaching for her again.

"Think about it, we're not going to have someone like Genji to end the fight. We need to get close to Zarya." Reaper wasn't trying to kill her so she took this as her opportunity to stand. "Look, this is a highly secure target. Whether its Zarya or Katya or something else, I need equipment. I need weapons. I need to be able to infiltrate and gain physical access to their computers"

"What are you proposing?"

"There is a facility in Palma, they are moving prototypes and advanced equipment there and it is vulnerable. Talon has wanted to hit that place for months. There is tech inside I need"

"You want us to help you steal stuff? From a facility half-way around the world from here? You are more narcissistic than I thought," Reaper growled, "No, we can do this one of two ways. Either you get behind your computer and find Katya or we go to Zarya and I get the information out of her"

"Zarya is not the squealing type, I did the research. You'll kill her before you get anything."

"I can be persuasive"

"Are you serious?" Sombra activated her haptic keyboard and showed Reaper various images of Zarya posing indomitably, "she is an international weightlifting competitor who decided _to join the war_ instead of _winning_ _the Olympics_ "

Widowmaker shook her head, she knew Sombra was right.

"Admit it, you are outgunned. Your lead was bad. If you want to follow dead leads and blame me that's fine. You can kill your way into Russia and back out without my help. So we can wait here until Zarya comes back and beat the information out of her—which you won't be able to. Or we can do this my way." Sombra's eyes shifted, she scanned Widowmaker's expression and Reaper's body language. They were listening. "A little trust, Reaper. This can be our moment when we work as a team"

Reaper stood above Sombra menacingly but then retracted. "You're testing my patience Sombra. We'll do it your way, for now"

Sombra sighed as Reaper retired to his room. Widowmaker smirked, she had just saved Sombra's life and she knew it.

"Let me be honest," she said as she sauntered closer to Sombra. She placed her hands on Sombra's shoulder and spoke softly into her ear, "I know who you think you are, I know that you think you can manipulate people, that you can live day-to-day by your wits. But I heard your conversation with your friend. You are an unfortunate sloppy girl"

Did Widowmaker know?

"Do not think you can manipulate us or leave us waiting like you did with your friend. I see everything and I am watching you"

Sombra looked into Widowmaker's green eyes, she was smiling condescendingly. Sombra had learned from her file that Widowmaker's augmentations made her hearing and vision superhuman but there was no way that she knew what Zenyatta had given her. This cheered her up. Sombra returned a knowing grin. "I'll keep it under consideration, _mija_ "

This response unnerved Widowmaker, she huffed and unslinked herself from Sombra's shoulder.

"Just don't waste our time"

Widowmaker left for her room.


	16. Chapter 16

Talon flew the plane to a Neo-Maoist camp in Northern India hoping to get out of Zarya's territory. They had to find a way to hide the plane or ditch it. There was only one way to hide a plane tracked by a satellite: the plane was taken apart piece by piece and shipped by Talon smugglers shipped the pieces by semi-trucks and high speed train to the North-West Frontier Province to a camp run by a rag-tag group of militants practicing a syncretic Islamic/Shambali religion where it was inconspicuously reassembled. They flew below radar cover hopping to-and-from Talon friendly bases across the middle east run by mercenaries, criminals, dissidents and militants of all kinds. The team was soon in Libya at a Talon run airbase.

The crew gathered around the briefing table in the middle of the aircraft. Reaper stood at the head briefing Sombra and Widowmaker. For such a small team this was a formality but Reaper thought it was wise to make it clear what Talon's plans were for Sombra.

"We're moving off of Zarya for now. Sombra, your role is changing," Reaper glared at Sombra. Sombra grinned in response and motioned "go on" causing Widowmaker to roll her eyes. Reaper continued, "You are no longer just intelligence and command and control. This mission will serve as a _trial_ to test your performance as a _field operative_ and will allow you to secure the equipment you'll need to be combat ready"

Sombra took over. "We're hitting an Overwatch prototype weapons facility in Palmyra to get some things I always wanted. We'll fly in close then enter the base on the ground. I'll infiltrate the base and secure the target prototype devices and weapons while you and Widowmaker cover the extraction zone." Sombra activated her haptic keyboard and projected a view of the base. "The base is lightly guarded by a skeleton crew comprised mostly of American PMCs. A few engineers and technicians may be on site. The Spanish and French military are not likely to intervene following the Cadaceus clause of the Petras Act. The prototypes are being held here temporarily until they are moved to Paris to be auctioned off and delivered to various defense corporations and governments. The base itself has been decommissioned and has been passed between unwilling defense contractors multiple times. They aren't expecting us"

"I cleared this with Talon so we have Talon agents in range in case you screw up. The first part of this mission will demonstrate how effective Sombra is-" Reaper turned his head and again cast a deadly look at her from behind his mask, "at working with a team." Sombra scowled. Reaper continued, "the second part of the mission will test how well she can follow orders and stick to the plan. Got it?"

Widowmaker and Sombra nodded.

"We have to trust each other if we are going to complete this mission without incident. We move out in an hour"

 _Talon aircraft en route to Overwatch Experimental Weapons Facility_

The had just finished preparing their gear and testing their earpieces. The aircraft flew low over the island to avoid attention. They parked several miles from the target in a secluded beach.

Reaper rehashed, "Sombra, once you are inside your first item is the thermoptic camouflage, second is a translocator beacon and the third is a prototype gun-"

"Remember this is my plan _chabrón_ "

"Sombra…" said Reaper, "just don't deviate from the plan"

The aircraft lowered its bay doors and Talon crept out in a black SUV. The base was in an isolated corner of the island, security had been taken up by PMC thugs running a far looser detail than the former occupants. Most of the Overwatch staff and military personnel had long been redeployed after Overwatch disbanded. As they approached Reaper began to pick up speed, the car's hovercoils began to glow a more intense blue.

"We're close," Reaper announced.

Widowmaker grabbed her rifle. A checkpoint came into view ahead of them. As they approached a guard stepped out, holding out his hand indicating to stop. The SUV picked up even more speed. The guard, being of below-average to average intelligence but still somewhat competent at judging distance, concluded correctly that they weren't stopping. He narrowly managed to jump out of the way. Immediately, he swiped out his walkie-talkie.

"Intruders!"

"Gabe? This is the plan?" whispered Widowmaker nervously as they zeroed in on the checkpoint gate.

 _Did she just call him Gabe?_ thought Sombra.

"Trust me"

"Oh ho," laughed Sombra, she was liking this, "now who's got trust issues?"

The gate was blown out of the way. Reaper, unfazed, kept the car steady. A second checkpoint, more heavily fortified, came into view. There a hapless guard sang poorly to himself with a pair of headphones in front of the fortified gate. The last words he heard before he was flattened against it were "Intruder!" as his colleague desperately tried to indicate to him that there were, in fact, intruders.

On impact, Reaper streamed out in his gaseous miasma form. The SUV was totaled with Sombra and Widowmaker inside. As he materialized into his human form, guards bearing assault rifles and body armor began to stream out onto the scene. Reaper wasted no time in drawing his guns and meeting them with a hail of bullets. In mere moments they all lay dead.

" _Je t'en fou, ce mec est foutrement derange, putain merde_ " cursed Widowmaker as she uncrumpled herself from the wrecked car.

Sombra began a similar discourse in her own language as she shook off the pain of the impact. She stumbled out. "Next time you want to kill me just use a fucking gun, huh? How did you know that wasn't going to kill us?" Reaper cocked his head to the side. "OK, your trust thing," said Sombra as Widowmaker emerged from the wreckage.

Klaxons began to blare.

"It will take them roughly 4 minutes to respond," said Sombra , "in the meantime, you want to explain why you just needlessly alerted the entire base?" Reaper stared menacingly at her, he was itching to get to work. "OK, I see how you want this done, fine with me _hombre_ "

He disintegrated into a cloud and poured towards an oncoming formation of soldiers. Widowmaker brushed herself off and stood next to Sombra.

"Not one for words is he," noted Sombra.

" _C'est comme ca,_ " she said before firing her grappling hook and jetting off to the nearby guard tower.

"I guess I'm the only one who likes to talk," she said to herself picking a prox card off of a guard that Reaper had dispatched.

The base was waking up. Guards were scrambling to their posts and emergency protocols were being frantically executed.

The walled interior of the base contained a command center and barracks, the storage facility and a vehicle hangar. While Reaper and Widowmaker were causing chaos in the military buildings, Sombra would infiltrate the storage facility.

She crept along the wall to avoid detection and made her way to the rear of the prototype building. She spotted an unguarded entrance and tentatively approached. _Locked_. Sombra looked and found a nearby utility shaft used to maintain water, power, and ventilation for the building. It was guarded by a gate with an electronic lock that accepted a keycard. Sombra tried the card she pilfered. It failed, she looked at the card and saw it had a magnetic strip. _Wiegland,_ she thought to herself. Sombra cracked open the device and found the DATA0 and DATA1 wires. She pinched the wires with her fingers and began to interface with them using her neural circuitry. Standard Wiegland format was 26 bits, fairly easy to brute force. She ran her hack and after a few moments the utility gate opened. She chuckled to herself and began crawling through the maintenance shaft.

"Now I know what a TV dinner feels like," she chuckled to herself.

Sombra turned a corner and found herself looking out a grate. Several guards rushed by. One guard, a white dude, posted himself near the grate.

"Psst, hey you"

"Huh? What?"

"Hey, the security protocol locked me in here when the alarm went off, can you let me out?" said Sombra in her best North American accent.

"Hold on, I gotta call this in." Sombra quickly activated a small EMP charge in range of his walkie-talkie. "Funny, nothing over coms, let me go find help"

"No, you can do it, just pull off this grate"

The guard thought to himself for a moment.

"It's automated. I'll hit the switch"

 _Now that's using your head,_ thought Sombra. The guard disappeared from her view and the grate flew open. The guard rushed back and leaned in to grab her hand. When she reached back and he saw her violet nails he immediately knew something was wrong but it was far too late. She gripped his forearm and pulled him. As he stumbled she slashed his throat with her butterfly knife.

Sombra crawled out into the large sterile white hallway and pressed her earpiece.

"I'm in"

"Good," replied Reaper, "Next you have to…"

"I know, cross the security barriers to the prototype storage area"

"We're trusting you"

"You just keep the commotion up"

She had emerged in a security section. Sombra sauntered down the hallway. Further down the corridor was a security station. She heard commotion further down the hallway, more guards were coming. Sombra decided to slip into the station.

It was a small room with CCTVs surveying the security corridors throughout the building and a computer console connected to a large screen. The screen bore the imperious logo "Athena."

Two guards were struggling with the console.

"Fucking thing, they didn't give us any access, how are we supposed to manage this situation when we can't even access the security system?"

"This was supposed to be a low risk job," griped another.

" _Que onda, weys?"_

"Hey, you're not-," Sombra pulled the chair out from one of the guards, he flailed and knocked his chin on the console as he fell to the floor. As the other stood Sombra elbowed him in the eye. He recoiled. Sombra pulled the his gun out of its holster and shot him in the foot. He collapsed in agony. The other guard was scrambling off the floor, Sombra quickly kicked him in the stomach then shot him in the back. He flattened out immediately. She grabbed the living one's collar pulling him off the ground then threw him against the wall and held the pistol under his jaw.

"You, I need access"

"We-, I can't get in, we've been trying. Only Overwatch agents have access"

"Dissatisfying _,"_ she said then shot him through the skull. He fell to the floor with a sickening thud.

Sombra looked at the screen. "You're going to talk to me, Athena"

In moments, Sombra had wired herself to the computer and had Athena's brains laid bare in a disassembler. As Sombra talked she watched registers fill with hex encoded data. The program counter furiously incremented through instructions.

"Athena, I need you to deactivate all active security protocols"

"Unauthorized access, please authenticate"

"Agent Sombra"

Sombra paused Athena. A conditional branch was coming up, she was about to be kicked off and maybe gassed, who knew? Sombra jumped around the hex encoded instructions. Athena had accessed a user array to check Sombra's name and voice data. She inserted a store instruction with her voice data and set the offset to the end of the user array. The program counter would increment to her new instruction before running normally. At least, that was the plan. She unpaused.

"Welcome back agent Sombra, deactivating security protocol," said Athena.

 _Boom_ , she thought, j _ust another program_.

"Talon agents were detected in the area are you sure that was a good idea?"

"I'm sure," Sombra continued, "Athena access footage of the intruders"

"Accessing," footage of Reaper and Widowmaker fighting scores of guards unfolded in front of her.

"Delete all footage of the intruders and deactivate all security cameras"

"Sorry agent Sombra, only a user with administrator level access has permission to delete security archive footage"

"Who would that be?"

"The current Overwatch station chief or a Strike Commander, your user has been logged for attempted unauthorized access"

 _Shit_.

Sombra paused and jumped around the disassembler trying to find an instance of a user struct with administrator access. She found one.

"Jack Morrison?" she whispered aloud, "OK, I'll take him."

She swapped him in as the currently authenticated user and wrote a quick exploit to automatically treat all voice data as Morrison's. "Delete all footage of the intruders and deactivate all station security cameras," she said after unpausing the program.

"Welcome back Commander Morrison. I am required by law to notify you that this request is in violation of UN house resolution 273-A"

"Yes, this is an emergency"

"Archive footage deleted, security cameras deactivated," said Athena, "commander, I would also like to inform you that agent Sombra has killed 3 guards, attempted to delete security archive footage and is currently using your account without authorization"

Sombra raised her eyebrow. _Clever_ , she thought. So it was not just another program.

"Delete agent Sombra's records and purge your logs"

"Yes, commander. Also, Commander Morrison, my records indicate that you were reported dead in 2070 but you have authenticated 204 times since then. Your account may have been compromised. It is Overwatch protocol to revoke administrative access to dead agents but my protocols have been overridden. Because you are dead it is advisable to revoke your user privileges"

A.I. is good with facts but not with what they mean, evidently.

"Show me what I accessed last time I authenticated"

"Yes, commander"

An autopsy report of a woman named Ana Amari appeared on screen. A Talon sniper had caught sight of her by the light reflecting off her scope. The bullet had grazed her skull but destroyed her scope. Tears from microscopic glass shards had shredded her cybernetically modified eye and the surrounding area to a pulp. She had died from blood-loss and complications removing the eye and its embedded hardware. Sombra knew of only one Talon sniper, what were the chances it was her? _Interesting_ , thought Sombra, _this base is full of secrets_. But there was no time for them all. She would have to take what she could.

"Show me all the records I've accessed since I've died"

Records flashed in sequence: Revolución del Día de los Muertos, Gabriel Reyes, Jesse McCree, Amelie Lacroix, intelligence reports on several Talon bases.

"Mr. Morrison has been very busy for a dead man"

She committed the information to her memory. Talon would be very interested to know they were being tailed by Jack Morrison. Another bargaining chip.

"Commander, Overwatch agents and Helix security personnel have entered station airspace. They will be arriving in 5 minutes. Would you like to contact them?"

"No, close all lines of communication, shut off the station's radar, tell them the threat has been neutralized"

"Commander, that is highly inconsistent with producing a favorable tactical outcome to the current situation, I must question your judgment"

 _This computer is too smart_ , thought Sombra, _I'm done talking to this bitch_.

"Athena, I need you to lock my account and shut down immediately"

"Yes commander, that is advisable. Shutting down"

On to the task at hand.

She tapped her earpiece, "Reaper, we're going to have company. Overwatch agents are on their way"

"Received"

Overwatch, for being disbanded, was looking very very active. Sombra grabbed the earpiece of one of the dead guards, she could hear chatter. She cracked it open and found the microphone input preparing something special for the guards to listen to. Sombra left the room. The Klaxons had stopped. For now. Someone was sure to notice that was a false flag but at least Sombra had covered her tracks.


	17. Chapter 17

Sombra continued down the security corridor. She approached a high-level security checkpoint guarding the lab area. The guards there were a step up but were disorganized by the false flag. Several of them were sporting advanced body armor and targeting systems.

"Is that them?" asked one.

"No, they're alone," said another. "Hey you, stop right there"

There were about 5 guards in sight. Sombra drew the pistol she had nabbed from the other guards.

"She's got a gun!" The guards aimed their weapons preparing to open up with a spray of fully automatic plasma fire.

In Sombra's other hand was the earpiece. She sent a massive electronic signal into the microphone input. The guard's earpieces suddenly shrieked with a deafening high-pitched sound and they were caught completely off-guard. Sombra ran towards them firing as they struggled to pull off their earpieces and helmets. They were quickly felled.

"Not bad for my first recording, I should play that for Lucio some time."

She dropped the earpiece and continued on. Soon Sombra was standing outside a large fortified door with a keycard lock.

"Why do they even bother?" she said looking at the lock.

In a moment the massive door was slowly being raised as warning alarms blared. Sombra was in the lab area and near her first objective. She turned into a large containment room filled with rows of stasis chambers and computers. As she entered several technicians stumbled from their chairs.

"Beat it," she said and they scrambled out the door behind her.

"How uncivilized," said an Indian woman's voice. To Sombra's ear it sounded a bit too proud and haughty.

The woman revealed herself. She was tall and beautiful with dark skin and aristocratic features. She wore an elegant Indian dress and a brand of sophisticated engineering glasses. Sombra eyed her body. _Legs for days,_ she thought, _but not my type_. Her left arm, however, was prosthetic.

"Better run _mija_ , you don't know what you are getting into," threatened Sombra.

"You're full of hot air, Vishkar has no quarrel with you, take what you want but not the camouflage, that is Vishkar corporation property"

"It's the funniest thing, you know that's exactly what I'm here for?"

The Vishkar woman was unfazed. "Then we have a problem," she said flatly pulling out a claw-like gun.

"That looks pretty advanced," Sombra mocked. She gathered energy into her EMP emitter and discharged a small blast in range of the gun. Sombra began to walk closer. "Try it," she dared as she closed the distance.

Sombra was in range, the Vishkar woman tried to fire her weapon but it was unresponsive. She looked afraid afraid and highly flustered.

"Just thought you'd want a fair fight is all" said Sombra.

The woman began to back up. Sombra detected her hesitation and adopted a more confident swagger as she finally closed the space between them. Symmetra swung the butt of her gun at Sombra but she charged in and forced her against the wall.

"This isn't happening," said the woman looking down trying to avoid Sombra's predatory gaze. Sombra rested her arm next to the woman's head. She was right where countless other people had been before Sombra took what she wanted from them.

"Come on, -what is your name?" Sombra spoke directly into her face.

"Symmetra"

"Thats what people call you?" The woman nodded. "OK, Symmettra, this isn't the worst thing in the world. All that talk back there? I'm full of hot air, we have a problem. I said stuff, you said stuff. Just give me the gun and give me the camouflage." Symmetra winced. "Come on," Sombra goaded.

The woman suddenly kneed Sombra in the chest as she shouted, "No!"

Sombra buckled in pain as the woman pushed away from the wall and assumed a fighting posture.

"So we do this the hard way." Sombra took off her large coat and placed it on a nearby office chair revealing her black and purple bodysuit.

Once the coat was off Sombra immediately got in her space. In response, Symmetra attempted to strike her with the palm of her free hand but Sombra took the hit, grabbed her arm and tackled her to the ground causing her to drop the gun on impact. Sombra needed to make sure she got it in less than 10 seconds or she would be able to use it. She pinned Symmetra and grappled her arms and legs until she had her in a rear choke hold. Symmetra was reeling psychologically from every moment of bodily contact with Sombra and Sombra could tell. Suddenly, it was all too much. She went limp.

"Aw, _pobrecita_ , giving up?"

"Never," she said gathering a sudden force to try and pull away and scramble towards the gun.

Sombra tightened her grip and dug in with her claws, she was stopped. Symmetra cried out in pain.

"Give me the camouflage"

"No"

"Give me the camouflage," she threatened in a sing-song voice.

"No"

"Last chance, you give me the camouflage or I choke you to death"

Phrased this way Symmetra reconsidered.

"I cannot refuse"

Sombra let go and rushed to pick up the plastic claw gun. She held it at Symmetra and let her get to her feet. Symmetra walked over to a containment field, tapped on the keypad and pulled out a jumble of wires and plastic. She then turned and handed the strange device to Sombra.

"There, you have what you want, now go"

"I don't think so, _mija_. You know this is a pretty big place with a lot of stuff I might like..." Symmetra looked furious. "I think you are the one that should be going"

"May I just remind you, that is Vishkar corporation property," Symmetra stepped around Sombra and began to walk towards her. Sombra stepped back since she honestly didn't know how or if the gun she was holding worked and didn't want to get kneed again.

"Yeah, you said that"

 _Just a little bit more_ , Symmetra thought. Sombra was getting irritated by this woman's sudden confidence, this time when she stepped forward she didn't retreat.

"What are you doing? I have the gun here"

"Fool, you're threatening me with a gun that doesn't work"

Symmetra suddenly pushed Sombra causing her to stumble backwards. The woman was tall but not strong so the push was ineffectual, however, it caused Sombra to stumble back. Sombra was completely outraged that this girl had built up the audacity to challenge her again. But Sombra hadn't realized Symmetra had been walking her.

"You weak little-"

Sombra was interrupted by an electronic chime. Several turrets just out of Sombra's line of sight simultaneously fired their beams into Sombra until she collapsed to the floor from pain. Symmetra casually walked by and picked up the camouflage.

"Ouch," uttered Sombra meekly as smoke emanated off her body. Sombra tried to stand but the turrets pelted her with beams until she was back on the ground. "OK, so this is how it is." She concentrated, drawing an even greater amount of energy into her EMP. " _Apagando las luces!_ " she shouted.

In a flash an EMP blast emanated from her levitating body causing the lights and research equipment in the room to flicker and die. Symmetra's turrets were now definitely disabled. Sombra landed one foot at a time then tossed the gun aside. "If it wasn't junk before it is now," she grinned, "now I believe we were talking _mija_..."

A feeling of dread overcame Symmetra when she saw the grin. Sombra hated trying and Symmetra had made her try. She charged in and punched Symmetra, first in the face then in the stomach with all the force she could muster. Symmetra dropped the camouflage and collapsed, her mouth bloodied. Sombra spit then shook out her hand. " _Apuesto que duele,_ " she muttered. While Symmetra was stunned she dragged her up then kneed her in the stomach several times before throwing her against the wall and pinning her. Sombra spoke directly into her face, "any more tricks?" The grin and playful tone were gone. Symmetra saw in her eyes all the myriad ways she was planning on tearing her apart.

"No"

"Then get out"

Symmetra cowered away from Sombra and headed to the door.

"You forgot something," Sombra held Symmetra's gun.

Symmetra felt powerless, this was already so humiliating. She stumbled back until she met Sombra. _No, she must_ _know what she's done,_ she thought. Symmetra found her pride and gathered herself standing tall before Sombra. She then took in every detail of Sombra's face for a few seconds before speaking. "You've made a dangerous mistake today, your overconfidence will be your demise," she said sternly. Sombra shrugged and smiled innocently in response. She then snatched the gun out of Sombra's hand and turned her back to her. "It's people like you that ruin the order of this world," she said keeping her back towards her.

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here" she chided, "now how do I use this thing?"

Sombra investigated the camouflage, it didn't look like much. There were microscopic camera and emitters on the pads which were meant to be strapped to the wearer's extremities. Thin wires connected the lads and fed into a main connector. She looked at the wiring. It was practically made for her. She pulled a female connector of the same type off of the device on her back. It was wound on a string that would snap back like measuring tape, she connected it to the camouflage and let go. It disappeared into her back, she felt herself gain command over the device. Sombra strapped it on and wondered out into the hallway looking for a bathroom. Soon she was looking at herself in the mirror.

She turned it on.

What she saw in front of her was horrifying. After a quick shimmer of purple light a jagged and deformed version of her own body manifested in front of her.

At that instant, a woman walked into the bathroom. Sombra could hear the alarm blare loudly for a moment as the door opened and closed. Upon noticing the monstrosity, her mouth fell agape and she let out a delayed but horrified scream. She screamed for a full 5 seconds before passing out.

"Oops, must be backwards," Sombra's hyper-elongated mouth flapped.

She took it off and reversed the straps.

Sombra tried again.

After a purple shimmer, she was gone. Sombra chuckled then reappeared.

"This should be handy"


	18. Chapter 18

Another heavy lab door rumbled open. Several guards lay at Sombra's feet as she shimmered into existence. She walked into the lab and saw the translocator beacon held in stasis at the far end. Her radio crackled with Reapers voice, "Somb-, Overw- agents -nsite." She turned it off and approached the beacon.

"Hello, what do we have here?" Sombra removed the translocator from stasis and held the item, eying it curiously. She pressed a button on the beacon and it suddenly emitted a laser which quickly scanned her body.

"You put that back," threatened a female voice with an English accent.

Indeed, it was strongly English, maybe West Yorkshire, not that Sombra could tell. She laughed totally unfazed, she thought it was cute. Sombra turned and saw a brown haired woman in an old-style bomber jacket and yellow tights sporting a strange device on her chest and two pistols.

"Or what, English? You'll kill me with spunk?"

"You clearly need to be taken down a notch. Do you even know how to use that thing?"

"Watch me," Sombra threw the device behind English and teleported.

Now on top of her, she went to sock English in the head. But in a split second English was gone and Sombra felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see the woman pointing her pistol directly at her.

"Not so fast, love. By the way, the name's Tracer"

Sombra groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Frustrated?" mocked Tracer.

"Annoyed," Sombra suddenly disappeared.

Tracer fired wildly but seemed to hit nothing but air. She eyed the room frantically.

"Over here, English," said Sombra as she decloaked.

Tracer fired in surprise but Sombra grabbed and twisted her right hand, the shots spread wildly throughout the room. Tracer tried to swing and aim her offhand gun at Sombra but she was too fast. She had already blocked it, the force of the block causing her to drop the gun. Still twisting her right hand, Sombra applied pressure as she kicked out Tracer's leg flinging her to the ground.

After the technique Sombra suddenly hunched over in pain. " _Me cago en la mierda_ , that hurts," groaned Sombra as she held her thigh, "you nicked my leg you asshole"

Sombra picked up one of Tracer's guns and stood over her.

"Do me a favor next time and just shoot me in the head instead of missing, do you know how much this hurts?" Sombra thought to herself then aimed at Tracer's head, "on second thought there won't be a next time"

In a flash Tracer was gone. Sombra looked around in surprise before realizing she wasn't holding a gun.

"OK so you are craftier than you look"

"I think mine's better than yours," called Tracer from a place unknown.

"Oh, you're not jealous of my new toys?" replied Sombra cockily although a hint of nervousness betrayed her.

"Not a chance"

"Oh, well, you might be jealous of my new friends. You might know them from somewhere"

There was silence as Sombra stalked around the laboratory.

"Someone like you doesn't have friends," shouted Tracer teleporting in front of Sombra and bashing her over with the full force of her accelerated body.

Sombra was completely caught off balance, she fell and slid on the floor. She was barely able to roll out of the way as Tracer sprayed bullets at her. Multi-million dollar computers were trashed in the wild fusillade, shreds of scientific papers went flying.

Sombra got to cover then threw her translocator over Tracer's head. She timed the sequence so she would fall at the right angle.

 _Zwoom._

Suddenly she was right on top of her. She had caught her completely off guard toppling her over onto her back. Sombra slashed wildly with her sharpened metal nails. Tracer's jacket was torn to ribbons from the deep cuts. The surprise and pain shocked her, Tracer reflexively put her armored forearms up to defend but realized that Sombra was gripping her neck. All she had to do was dig in and rip and Tracer would die horribly. Tracer put her arms down helplessly. Sombra had her.

"What? No tricks this time, English?" Sombra sat on Tracer's chest with her full weight, "looks like three is your lucky number"

"You're pathetic," replied Tracer weakly. "I got one more"

Suddenly Tracer was lying down in the place Sombra had tripped her as if none of what just happened took place. Sombra, however, had caught it, watching the direction of the trail she had left as she rewound in time and leaped to the position. To Tracer's surprise, Sombra immediately landed on top of her. "Too bad your past sucks too, _mija._ " She pulled back, electrified her hand and pounded it against Tracer's throat. On connection she gripped and released an electric shock of about 120 joules. Tracer flattened against the floor.

Sombra leaned in and whispered, "next one stops your heart." She was bluffing. Sombra could discharge a small amount of electricity from her hands to interface with circuitry but she could not kill a healthy human outright. But Tracer could feel the charge in Sombra's hand. The shock caused her nervous system to recoil. It had taken the air out of her lungs and sapped the strength from her muscles. Tracer was terrified.

A voice came over Sombra's earpiece, "Sombra, what's your status"

"2 out of 3 items secured and I met a new friend," replied Sombra.

"Deal with them, we don't have much time," scolded Widowmaker.

Tracer's eyes widened. "You can't trust her," she coughed.

"Oh, you know each other? Just a second," Sombra took one hand off Tracer, flicked the blood off her nails and activated her wearable keyboard. After a few strokes, the device on Tracer's chest flashed red then died, it had been disabled. "Can't have you going places while we are making nice. Now, tell me something interesting. Lucky for you I don't kill interesting people." Tracer grimaced and gave a fierce look of resistance."OK, honestly, there isn't much I don't know about them. So, let's play a game. You tell me something interesting," Sombra placed her hand behind her on Tracer's crotch. "And I don't do something interesting to you."

Tracer passed out.

"Damn it"


	19. Chapter 19

Sombra dragged Tracer's bleeding body behind her cursing in Spanish. As she struggled with the unconscious body it left a gruesome trail of blood behind. She was looking for a medical station. Soon she found one.

"Access denied" alerted the station.

" _Puta_ ," Sombra spit then activated her wearable keyboard muttering in Spanish, in a few strokes it was more cooperative.

Sombra used it first on herself then slid Tracer's arm into the machine. Sombra then walked into a nearby office found a post-it note and pen and wrote the message: "CALL ME" followed by a doodle skull and a phone number. She muttered, "Bitch actually tried to kill me, I respect that" and smacked it onto Tracer's skull before leaving the scene.

Sombra activated an EMP, disabling the next security section. The guards, wearing augmented reality targeting helmets were rendered helpless; they struggled to take off their equipment as Sombra dispatched them one by one. The facility's alarm continued to blare.

Sombra imperiously walked through the hallways. Her ego was soaring, she felt unstoppable. She turned a corner, deeper into the base. As happenstance she noticed a locker room for security staff and looked in. Her eyes met those of a brown skinned woman with impeccable makeup and a black tank top half-way into a fairly sophisticated looking piece of armor.

Sombra grinned maniacally and approached her. The woman detected her evil intentions and struggled faster with her armor. _What_ _am I going to do to you?_ The question excited her.

"Hey there"

"You," the woman replied darkly.

"Me? You don't know who I am," Sombra walked closer and was well into the woman's personal space. "But you are," she grabbed her dogtags and ripped them off her neck, "Fareeha, 'Pharah' Amari."

Pharah wasn't going to get her armor working in time. There was a complicated start up procedure for booting when components are missing.

"Really caught you guys with your pants down, huh?"

Pharah slid her right arm fully into her armor.

Sombra caught her, "I wouldn't try that," Sombra drew her knife and flicked it around near her face.

Pharah gazed at her furiously.

"Not much for words," noted Sombra as she picked up Pharah's helmet, regarded it for a moment and tossed it to the ground. "Well, I would be dumbstruck too at how screwed I was if I were you." Pharah eyed the other arm section longingly as Sombra walked towards her, inspecting her body. She was sweating. It was tough work putting Raptor armor on yourself in a pinch, entire teams usually assisted her. "You are a piece of work," she said giving her body the up-and-down resting her gaze on her abs. "You Overwatch people," she mused as her eyes turned to a rocket launcher just out of Pharah's reach. She pocketed her knife and picked up the weapon aiming it at Pharah. "I wonder how you use this?"

"Not like this. Please, not like this"

"Shh, no talking, I'm trying to figure something out," toyed Sombra. She flicked a switch and the rocket launcher chambered a rocket. "OK, I'm ready for you but make it fast," she said, "I'm not exactly supposed to be here," she continued fake whispering the last part.

"Not like this"

"What?" Sombra said in a mocking tone.

"Not. Like. This." Pharah was angry now, utterly infuriated at her misfortune.

"So get talking"

"I'll tell you nothing," spat Pharah.

"What? You just want mercy? And I get nothing? That's not how this..." Sombra stopped as she felt the cold metal of a gun press against the back of her head. "Damn it, that's the second time today"

"Pharah, get your armor on. You drop ze gun," said a stern female voice from behind Sombra's ear.

Sombra cursed in Spanish and threw the launcher down. The woman started unclipping the neural interface on the side of Sombra's head. This girl was smart. Sombra felt herself lose control of her hardware, she couldn't cloak.

"Angela, I need the helmet" shouted Pharah, the woman found the helmet and tossed it to her.

Pharah finished putting her armor on while Angela kept the gun pressed against her head.

"I saw footage of you on security, handover the beacon"

Suddenly Sombra was an orphan girl who was caught shop lifting. Sombra hated being one-upped.

"I don't know what you mean," she said meekly.

"No games. Pharah, secure her while I search"

Pharah's armor was now online. She walked over to Sombra and turned her around holding her arms. Angela emptied Sombra's pockets and found the translocator and her knife. Once they were convinced she didn't have anything else on her, Pharah spun her around and grabbed her cheeks with her right hand. Sombra felt her teeth crash into each other.

"No one humiliates me," said Pharah in an authoritarian tone.

Sombra was crushed, she felt her mood collapse. The two woman's self-assured voices began to grate on her. How was she going to get out of this?

"Pharah, that isn't necessary" said Angela, "let's just move her to the holding area"

"Stay out of this doctor," replied Pharah in a cold tone, "she is a criminal, justice needs to be done."

"Pharah, love, please"

 _Love?_

"Sombra, come in," said Reaper over her earpiece.

"So that's who you are," noted Pharah.

"Is that Gabriel's voice? Who are you working for?" asked the doctor.

"Sombra, report," Reaper repeated.

"Sombra, whatever your name is, respond and say that you are OK, your mission is accomplished and you'll meet him," said the Doctor. "Do it"

"Yeah, yeah," said Sombra, "I need my hands"

Pharah let go. Sombra shook off then pressed on her earpiece. She thought to herself for a moment before speaking. She was a contrarian orphan girl again. _No one tells me what to do_.

"I'm compromised!" she yelled.

Pharah immediately hit her and sent her sailing into a locker. Sombra recoiled in pain but quickly got up in time to dodge a rocket.

"Are you crazy? Don't fire that thing in here!" cried the doctor.

Sombra took the opportunity to reconnect her neuro-interface and in a flash she was invisible. She booked it towards the doctor, knocking the gun out of her hand. She quickly grabbed it and shot out her knee. The doctor screamed mortally and collapsed.

"Angela!" cried Pharah.

Next she had to deal with her armored foe. At least she could count on her to not use the rocket launcher. But that armor was tough to crack, unless... Sombra scanned for hackable devices, _lo and behold_ , she picked up not the armor but the jet pack. Sombra laughed to herself, she would have to surprise her. Sombra spotted a fire extinguisher, she ran to it but Pharah noticed her and placed a rocket behind her sending her flying. _Scratch not worrying about the rocket launcher,_ she thought as she sailed through the air.

She landed face-first in front of the extinguisher. "How lucky," she mused. Sombra grabbed it and stood up spraying the extinguisher to obscure herself. Pharah walked into the cloud and was met with the extinguisher swinging towards her face. The impact cracked her helmet visor but was only disorienting. Pharah grunted and corrected herself before being sprayed in the eyes by the extinguisher. Now Sombra had her. Pharah cried in pain as the chemicals ate at her eyes.

"You animal!" she shouted.

Sombra dropped the extinguisher and started her hack. In 10 seconds Pharah's jet pack would activate whether she wanted it to or not, probably not. As Pharah and Angela struggled Sombra waltzed over to a trash bin, emptied it and placed it over Pharah's head.

"I think that color suits you," mused Sombra. She picked up the extinguisher. "Ring the bell!" she said laughing to herself before whacking the hapless Pharah with the blunt heavy object. The metal reverberated after the hit.

She turned to Angela, "you know in high school I was bullied by other girls? You'd never know," she mocked.

Angela made a "why?" face in response.

"Hup! Stand back babies! 3, 2, 1"

The engines on Pharah's jetpack began to flare up.

" _Adios_!" said Sombra saluting to Pharah.

Pharah's jump jets flung her at high force causing her to ricochet in what looked like a very painful manner about the room. Sombra stood out of the way watching wild eyed until the boosters ran out and Pharah skidded painfully to a stop.

"Some performance," she said clapping, "Pharah dear? Are you OK?" she kicked the trashcan, a groan emanated from inside. "No it's OK, don't get up."

Sombra walked over to the writhing Doctor, crouched down and grabbed her by the hair.

"Angela, you are clearly the brains in the relationship. Keep princess justice meathead over here out of trouble. Also if you ever need a unicorn"

"What? We're not in a relation-" Sombra looked away and let go causing her to face plant on the linoleum floor before she finished. "Glad we had this talk"

Sombra pressed on her earpiece. "Scratch that last"

"Rrr, Sombra, the mission"

"Right"

"I'm coming in to get you, we're out of time"

"Not necessary," said Sombra staring out of the locker room at a group of guards moving what looked like her target. It was a prototype weapon suspended in air by some sort of high-tech stasis device.

"Som-," she cut him off.

They noticed her and immediately began to run away.

"I see my reputation precedes me"

Sombra stood up a headed towards her target.

"Call it even, babies," she said and bowed out.

Sombra approached the levitating weapon. Up close it looked rather small. She grabbed it and it was incredibly light to the touch, she could hold it easily with one hand.

"This is the prototype weapon?" she said disappointed, "I could buy like 10 of these from Los Muertos"

It felt like it was made of plastic. She grabbed the levitating ammo and loaded it. Everything felt well machined but perhaps a little loose.

"What's so special about this thing?"

Sombra aimed at the wall and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked and sprayed about 10 bullets in under a millisecond. It knocked Sombra to the floor.

"OK, so you can't aim it," she said recovering herself.

She noticed a Wi-Fi signal button on it then activated her wearable keyboard. The device appeared hackable.

"So they made it so you could hack it on purpose..."

It provided a full API that included access to a camera and the firing mechanisms. Inside the gun was a powerful tiny computer.

"This is such a dumb idea, I love it"

 _Final test_ , she thought. She charged her EMP and attempted to disable it. After a quick flash she tried to access it again. It was still there, unaffected.

"Electromagnetic pulse resistant. OK, I get it," she grinned to herself.

 _Fun and useful,_ she thought.

She pressed her earpiece. "Reaper, did you know I would love this gun?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about"

"This is the best present to myself ever!"

Reaper ignored her.

"We're extracting, it's now or never, Sombra"

"OK OK. Bye"


	20. Chapter 20

Sombra peered back into the locker room. Pharah and Angela were gone. So was the rocket launcher. _Strange_. Unfettered, she began to leave the way she came.

She passed the security sections unmolested, some defeated guards wandered around injured and confused. Sombra didn't bother with them, she wasn't one for unnecessary killing, at least for today. She felt like an unstoppable force, there was nothing in the world that could best her. Everyone who had tried to stop her today was badly beaten.

She turned a corner.

"Stop right there," said a familiar German voice.

"Not you again"

Angela and Pharah and stood in front of her, along with 6 or 7 guards. Pharah had removed her busted up armor but was still sporting her rather serious looking rocket launcher. Angela held a much more lethal looking assault rifle.

"I hate violence but I'm willing to use it if necessary, return everything you have stolen and come quietly"

The guards readied their weapons and eyed Sombra in anticipation. Sombra was genuinely shocked, she was pretty sure she had given them each something to think about in the hospital for at least a few months.

"How did you-?"

"I'm a doctor"

 _Shit. Shit. Shit_ , she thought. With what she had done to Pharah, she was sure she was going to be tortured. No way out. She held her hands up.

"No, lay the weapon on the ground and lie down," shouted Pharah.

 _Oh God_ , she thought, _they are just going to shoot me. Ok, don't panic_. She dropped the Sentinel facing them then curled into a ball so they couldn't see her hands.

"What are you doing? Lie down!" shouted Pharah as she walked closer.

Sombra began the fastest hack in her life. She accessed the Sentinel's API; it would now shoot on a key stroke. Sombra uncurled herself and lay down as she felt Pharah grab her collar and force her to the ground.

"Hey, I'm sorry about all that earlier, you know you have a beautiful body," Pharah pressed her head on the floor and grabbed her left hand, "yeah, a real pervert"

"Shut up," yelled Pharah as she pulled out handcuffs.

"Get the neural interface first," shouted Angela to Pharah.

The other guards began to approach thinking it was safe. She needed them as close as possible. Pharah started to unclip the hardware from her head.

Sombra stopped playing. She activated her wearable keyboard and held down on the fire button. The Sentinal sent a wall of bullets towards the guards. The noise was deafening. The guards were sent into total confusion, several of them fired randomly in response, a few fell dead immediately-their foreheads caught in the random spray. Sombra pushed Pharah off of her when she felt her grip loosen in surprise. The gun continued to let loose a hail of fire sending wildly inaccurate bullets ricocheting everywhere. Angela cowered, she was lucky enough to have a dead guard fall on her protecting her body. Sombra ran and grabbed the rather frisky gun, directing its fire at the remaining guards. After all 60 rounds were depleted, only Sombra, Pharah and Angela were standing.

"Your move," chided Sombra.

"We still have you covered," said Angela aiming her weapon.

"No you don't," replied Sombra cloaking.

Angela fired a burst in response but seemed to hit nothing.

"Damnit!" yelled Pharah, throwing her weapon to the ground.

"I told you to get her interface first, damn you!"

Sombra was already uncloaking nearby. She was hit and had been forced to uncloak from the impact. This time the bullet was in her left torso. She felt her side. No, two bullets were in her left side. She cursed.

She ran as well and fast as she could with her injury towards the exit. She passed guards and staff burning papers and erasing computer files. The station was in total chaos, they thought they were under assault from a small army. Sombra thought she heard explosions in the distance. Finally she was outside just in time to witness a guard running towards her fall dead after the crackle of sniper fire. _Impressive,_ she thought.

"I'm outside, what's the story?" asked Sombra.

"I'm commandeering a vehicle," replied Reaper.

In a few moments a white armored car with the letters U.N. stenciled on the roof approached and screeched to a halt in front of her and popped open its passenger door. The huge ancient diesel engine rumbled. Vehicles like this with older tech were used for their reliability and low maintenance. They could also take punishment better than hover cars. Several guards ran out of a nearby hanger and pointed at the vehicle.

"Think you could maybe get something more conspicuous?" chided Sombra.

"No. Shut up"

Sombra climbed in. Widowmaker was seated in the back. She yawned.

"We're moving out," said Reaper as he stepped on the gas.

"Please, no helicopters this time," sighed Widowmaker.

"Shut up and man the turret. Sombra, are you all right?"

"I'm hit but OK"

"We have company," said Widowmaker, "looks like they are escalating"

Two armored hover cars and a hover tank were approaching at high speed.

"Sombra, do you have anything that can deal with that?"

"Depends," responded Sombra.

"That's a bullshit answer," growled Reaper, "what do you need?"

"You have to get me close"

"Fine"

Reaper turned the car to face them and accelerated. Widowmaker was jolted in surprise.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"Sombra has a plan"

"Plan is a pretty big word for what I got"

"Just don't get us killed," said Widowmaker lowering her viewfinder and firing.

Suddenly, a huge explosion rocked the car. Bullets started sprinkling the against the car's armor.

"They've got us in range"

"Yeah, just give me a moment," Sombra checked her penetration testing device, no signals in range, these vehicles were mostly non-computerized. That made things difficult.

"They seem to be protected. I'll have to disable them myself"

Sombra opened the armored gunner position above the passenger seat and peered out. They were nearing the enemy tank. Noticing their advance it began to try to back up but they were gaining on it. It fired and missed again, the crew was inexperienced. The shell impacted on a building behind them and exploded, Sombra would have been deafened but her augmentations protected her eardrums. Widowmaker saw the damage and was getting impatient.

"We'll be killed out here," she shouted.

"Nah ah"

Reaper brought them up to the enemy tank. Sombra placed her translocator beacon on the seat, crawled out onto the roof of the car, then heaved herself onto the tank. She landed and immediately scaled the turret to get to the engine. A crewman opened the turret hatch and began spraying bullets with a submachinegun. This made it difficult for Sombra to work. She balanced herself and scanned for a maintenance panel or anything she could use to get access to the tank.

"Widowmaker, take care of the crew for me," said Sombra over her earpiece.

"With pleasure," she responded and the crewman was down after a crackle of sniper fire.

Shouting emerged from inside the tank as the crew struggled to ditch the body and close the hatch. Sombra noticed a fuel and power port. She crawled over amidst the chaos of the chase and plunged her hand into the power port. It immediately shocked her.

"Whoops, don't know why I thought that would work," she winced, "OK, let's try that again"

Sombra noticed a diagnostic screen, she tapped at a few times and it flashed "ACCESS DENIED: VEHICLE IN OPERATION." Impatiently, she ripped the screen off and pulled out the connectors. Sombra then touched the exposed circuitry with her nails and flushed the circuits with electricity, in a few seconds she had mapped out the tank's hardware, a diagram of multiplexers, gates and switches filled her head. She found the tank's computer and began row hammering it to gain access to its operating system. After a few seconds Sombra was in. She turned the tank's hover engine off. It stopped suddenly and crashed on the concrete. The crew clamored in confusion inside the tank. Sombra sent a signal to clamp the hatch shut, deactivate the controls and turn off the lights. Now they were fucked. Reaper drove past at high speed followed by the 2 other armored cars. She aimed the turret at the last car then fired. She eyed the shell as it made a graceful arc through the air.

 _Boom_ , the vehicle was annihilated by the explosive round.

"Heh, and they say hover tanks are unreliable," she said snickering to herself.

"Sombra, we saw it, we'll handle that last car and pick you up," said Reaper over her ear our piece.

"No need."

Sombra pulsed electricity into the circuitry of the tank bricking the 13 million dollar piece of hardware then in a flash teleported back into the car.

"Miss me?"

"No. Whatever. Good job. We're getting out of here"

"How are we getting out of here?"

"I called some agents"

"Some agents?" Sombra looked offended, "this is our heist"

A Talon gunship suddenly swooped in from above, laying down covering fire.

"Whatever. Did you find anything?"

"Rail gun"

"You found 'rail gun'? What is that?"

"Widowmaker, show her what we found"

Widowmaker dismounted the turret and opened the armored box sitting in the back seat.

" _Viola_ ," said Widowmaker gesturing to a collection of circuits and plastic.

"It's disassembled," noted Sombra incredulously.

"Well, we thought you could build it," remarked Widowmaker in a snide tone.

"You are fucking kidding me"

"Fast would be good, Sombra. We still have our friends behind us," stated Reaper tersely.

"I had a tank you know?"

Reaper was silent.

"Do you want us to die?"

Reaper continued to remain silent.

Sombra began a long stream of expletives in Spanish as she pushed Widowmaker out of the way and grabbed the instructions.

"OK, so power supply, motherboard, projectile switcher, capacitor bank, positive conducting rail, negative conducting rail..." Sombra muttered to herself as she accounted for the components, "natural gas injector, helicon coupler, superconductor…" Sombra snapped the parts together and pounded the electronic components into the motherboard. "If this works it will be a miracle," shouted Sombra over machine gun fire.

She continued muttering to herself as she connected the battery to the power supply. "What are the chances it's charged?" After a short prayer she flipped the "on" switch and the LED screen lit up and immediately displayed an error.

"Yes! That's good, fail early, fail often," muttered Sombra. Sombra began to assemble the gun and it quickly took shape. It was a tube with an opening in the front and back, similar to an RPG launcher but with two prominent rails protruding out the front and a bunch of hardware and wires dangling off the bottom.

Suddenly, Widowmaker gasped. She was hit. She collapsed in the gunner's seat and held the wound. It was bad. After a moment, Sombra popped up next to her. Widowmaker winced at her in pain.

"I need you to hold this, dear," said Sombra pushing the partially assembled rail gun onto Widowmaker's shoulder Widow gasped in pain.

"What are you crazy?"

"Well, I'm not an engineer," replied Sombra plugging a power cord into the rail gun and promptly ducking back into the car.

She tapped at the touch screen. Ammunition, battery level and targeting displays appeared. The camera showed that it was aimed at the top of the car they were driving.

"I need you to hold it steady," shouted Sombra.

"I'm injured you fool," replied Widowmaker.

Sombra popped into the gunner seat next to Widowmaker and helped her aim it at the enemy armored car. She dropped below and checked the camera. The enemy car was locked in. She pressed the fire button and FWOOM! A massive energy projectile flew out of the back of the device and tore a chunk out of the Overwatch complex. Several burning bodies fell to the ground as that section of the building collapsed.

"I think the polarization of the rails is reversed" shouted Sombra.

Widowmaker responded with a stream of French explicatives. Sombra scrambled back to the gun. Part of Widowmaker's hair was on fire, she gave Sombra a wide-eyed death stare.

"Save it" said Sombra as she quickly rewired the rails, "OK, now hold it steady"

"I told you, I'm-," started Widowmaker but Sombra was already inside.

Widowmaker winced in pain as she did her best despite the pain to aim the rail gun at the enemy armored car, now a little more reticent after seeing the last shot. The car was locked in.

"Fire now, I can't hold it!"

Sombra pressed the fire button and witnessed it be eviscerated by the blast on the gun's camera. Widowmaker slumped back down in the seat and sighed in relief.


	21. Chapter 21

The Talon gunship began its landing procedure. Reaper maneuvered the car behind the landing gunship and brought the armored car to a screeching halt. The aircraft deployed its landing gear and lowered its cargo bay doors as it descended.

"Out," commanded Reaper.

Sombra kicked open the passenger side door and hobbled towards the aircraft. She laughed, "we did it" then cringed from her injury as she walked up the ramp into the Talon aircraft. A talon medic ran up to her and propped her up.

"You're injured," he said, his voice distorted by his helmet's voice com.

"No shit," she replied.

He sat her down in corner of the loading bay and pulled off her jacket to tend to her injury. Reaper carried Widowmaker onboard and laid her down near Sombra. Several medical staff rushed to her and started cutting away her skin tight leotard to get to her injuries. Talon agents stormed off the ship and set up firing positions around the armored car. Several agents extracted the railgun and other stolen equipment.

"I detest you," said Widowmaker to Sombra.

"Yeah, I love you too," replied Sombra.

Outside a Talon agent yelled "Clear!" and the armored car was detonated. There were smatterings of gunfire before the agents loaded themselves back onto the aircraft.

"That was a total fiasco," said Reaper.

"Hey, I got the goods didn't I? I also learned some stuff you might want to know"

"Like what? You have 10 seconds before I blow your head off"

"Jack Morrison is alive"

Reaper cocked his head sideways.

"Go on"

"He's working on his own hunting Talon agents He's been hunting you and Amelie"

"Don't ever call me that. Where did you learn that name?" spat Widowmaker as the medics worked on her.

"How do you know?"

"I had access to Athena for a moment, I stole some of Jack's data, he had accessed your files. Also Gabe, I can call you Gabe right? I didn't know you worked for Overwatch"

Reaper was silent.

"You-, you need to tell me everything you found. I want those files"

"Aww, Gabe," the aircraft's cargobay door closed as the last of the agents boarded, "weren't you going to blow my head off?"

"Sombra…" growled Reaper.

The medic working on Sombra motioned for her to lie back, "This is going to sting." Sombra grimaced as the medic used a handheld robotic medical arm to extract the bullet. She felt the arms widen in her wound as it grasped the bulle.t She yelped in pain as the medic suddenly tugged. The bullet was out. He pulled out a foam gun and packed it with biotic gel. Sombra felt the wound close. The aircraft's engines began to accelerate.

"Secure her and stop the bleeding," a medical officer motioned at Widowmaker, "we'll finish after takeoff"

Soon they were in the air and had cleared the airspace around the station. The aircraft held a dozen Talon personnel. A few Talon agents looked over at the two women as they were tended to.

"Who are these guys. Reaper?" asked Sombra.

"Friends"

"Yeah, right"

"It has to come off, we need to get to the wound," the medical officer pointed at Widowmaker's leotard.

"I want to be treated by a woman," said Widowmaker.

The medic shook his head. Widowmaker sighed, "at least cover me from these buffoons"

He undid the top of her leotard exposing her breasts and continued with the extraction.

Reaper walked towards some Talon agents craning their necks trying to get a glimpse of the two injured women. He gripped one's shoulder, "look at the wall," he menaced. The agent quickly complied. Reaper turned towards the rest of the agents. "Anyone else want to take a look?" They looked away. "Thought so"

He walked back towards Widowmaker and Sombra, "They're mercenaries. Highly paid, you can trust them"

"I bet," said Sombra.

"Shut up you whore," snapped Widowmaker in pain after a medic pulled out a bullet. He packed the wound and bandaged her, "you know nothing about Talon"

"Oh yeah? I'm starting to get the gist. I read your file _chica_. I'm surprised you can feel pain after what Talon did to you"

The medical officer working on Sombra finished bandaging her torso. He indicated to Sombra he was going to move to the next bullet. She nodded.

"You were brainwashed, _amiga_ "

"Breath in," he commanded as he took the handheld medical arm and positioned it over the wound on Sombra's thigh. He deployed it and it gripped the bullet. The officer pulled and Sombra cried out, " _Puta madre,_ that hurt."

The bullet was out. The medic let go and it clinked to the floor.

"You talk like you aren't one of us but you are," said Widowmaker as her medic sat her up and gave her his uniform jacket, "you believe everything in that file? Talon made me into a killer and offered me the chance to change history. I took it"

"Yeah, now look at you"

"Enough," interrupted Reaper, "Sombra, I'm giving you a final opportunity to get with the program-"

"No, Reaper," she interrupted in return, "you get with the program. You are acting like we lost because smurfette here took a few hits. I got in, I neutralized all the enemy agents by myself, I got the goods and I got you intel on Jack Morrison," Sombra mouthed off, "all you two did was provide a diversion while I worked. You are always threatening me because I bet you can't stand that I'm in control. That I'm smarter than you-"

Reaper leaned in suddenly and gripped Sombra on the shoulder. Smoke rose from the crevices in his gauntlet and from behind his mask. Widowmaker sat up and smiled. The medical officers slowly stepped away. They had seen something like this happen before.

"You think I can't tell when I'm being manipulated?" Reaper yelled then punched next to Sombra's head. Some Talon agents looked over at the commotion. Reaper took off his mask and Sombra witnessed an otherworldly mass of eyes and teeth, it partially collapsed into a cloud of particles and flowed out of Reaper's hood an into Sombra's eyes and mouth. Sombra felt her lungs filling with the black particulates as her heart pumped what felt like tar. She collapsed off of her seat to her knees coughing and holding her heart. Her entire nervous system was reeling in terror. All she saw was Reaper's knees but her vision began to go dark filling with horrible mouthing shapes. Suddenly, the dread and terror faded, "I hope you got what you needed to finish the job."

Reaper put his mask on and slowly walked to the back of the aircraft. Sombra coughed deep hacking coughs.

"Not so clever now are you?" sneered Widowmaker as Sombra continued to cough.

The aircraft was hushed. After a final cough she stood up. All the Talon agents in the aircraft stared at her, "what the fuck are you looking at?"

It hadn't occurred to her, it did look like she fucked up, she was covered in bandages and blood. Widowmaker, the best sniper in the world, was now a half-naked bloody mess. She had brought all these agents here, to them it looked like a rescue. Sombra sat down and scowled. She kicked herself for mouthing off to Reaper.

Reaper meanwhile thought to himself about what he had seen and concluded that Sombra was very very dangerous.


	22. Chapter 22

In a few hours they were back in Libya. The French airforce had sent interceptors but they withdrew when they encountered Talon surface to air missile batteries off the coast.

The Talon agents transferred to their old aircraft. On board, Sombra apologized to Reaper.

"Gabriel-, Reaper, I'm sorry," Widowmaker scoffed in her room, "I was way out of line"

"I don't care"

"What?" this was unexpected, this was the first time in recent memory—possibly ever—that Sombra had apologized for anything and it was rejected.

"You'll face Zarya alone, if you live then we follow the rest of your plan"

Sombra stared incredulously at Reaper for a moment.

"OK fine, I get it," she dismissed, "you are still angry-"

"You think you are special? You are thirty. You spent your best years in prison. If we want another hacker we can get one. You are expend-"

The spattering of gunfire outside interrupted their conversation.

"What are the chances that's your man Jack?" said Sombra.

"We'll see. Widowmaker-"

"I heard, I'm on it," she lowered her visor and scanned.

Outside two Talon agents slumped against each other, falling from pinpoint accurate shots to their foreheads.

"Scum," said a gruff voice as he stepped over them.

Widowmaker scanned for heat signatures. She watched two more Talon agents drop, "there might be more than one"

"Doubtful," replied Reaper, "Jack works alone"

"What if its not Jack?"

The three Talon agents stood in the aircraft as Widowmaker tried to get a bearing on the situation.

"What are we doing? You guys are acting like you're afraid," Sombra said impatiently, "I'm going out there"

Sombra cocked her machine pistol and lowered the aircraft's door. Two talon guards stood on alert, they frantically aimed their weapons looking for their hidden enemy in panic.

"Whats the situation?"

"We can't get a visual on them-," said one of the guards before dropping from plasma fire.

" _No manches"_

The other guard threw down his weapon and ran. Sombra crouched and slinked back into the aircraft.

"He's after me," said Reaper.

"Better go talk to him then"

"Cover me"

Reaper collapsed into a cloud and flowed out the aircraft's door onto the tarmac. He materialized. Sombra and Widowmaker followed.

"Your new girlfriend's been causing trouble," echoed a gruff voice from the tarmac, "I never knew you to keep company with girls with a heart rate"

Widowmaker sighed at the remark, "I found him," she pointed towards a supply truck.

"I'm full of surprises," said Reaper, "why don't you show yourself and we can have one of our talks like old times," the three agents aimed their guns at Jack's position.

Jack emerged from his cover holding his plasma rifle with one hand.

"He's holding something," said Widowmaker, "looks like a detonator"

"Yeah, Gabe, its about time," said Jack, "but you know, I think the person I really want to talk to is the _senorita_ over there. She did quite a number on my friends"

Sombra shuffled, she didn't like this.

"Athena told me about you, she doesn't appreciate people messing with her head. Return the weapons and maybe I'll consider not blowing this whole place to pieces and killing you anyways"

Reaper and Widowmaker looked at Sombra. Sombra smiled, the detonator in Jack's hand was wireless, she was in total control of the situation. She stepped forward.

"You really got me Jack," she taunted as she walked, "you know, I read your file and I have to say I'm impressed. You are a different man from the posters and interviews. But I hear death will do that to you. What are you going by now? Soldier 69?"

Sombra opened her wearable keyboard an tapped a few times.

"76"

"But you really overestimate my loyalties. You think I care about a Talon base, a few men, or these losers over here?" Sombra was getting used to this routine.

Reaper cocked his head to the side.

"Press it"

"What?"

Reaper and Widowmaker looked at each other.

"Press it. You heard me"

Jack looked at the device in his hand.

"Go on," she dared.

He pressed. Nothing happened. He pressed again and nothing happened. Sombra walked back towards Reaper and Widowmaker. Jack pressed several times then threw the device on the ground in a rage.

"Whats wrong Soldier?"

"You-"

He looked towards the Talon agents and charged at them in a blind rage. Widowmaker readied her rifle. It crackled and Jack dropped his gun in shock. He held his hand and cried out in pain and anger, the bullet had gone straight through his palm. Sombra took a bow and Widowmaker blew a kiss as Reaper's imposing figure stood before them. Jack was finished.

"Do it now!" yelled Jack.

Suddenly a biotic grenade landed in front of the three agents and exploded. Immediately, Sombra felt sick and crippled. She hacked and coughed through the cloud of noxious gas. She looked up after the miasma had cleared and the crippling feeling had subsided. Jack was gone but had left the detonator. _Idiot_ , she thought picking it up and pulling out the battery.

"Not bad, huh?" said Sombra as she sauntered over to Reaper.

"So you are useful," replied Reaper, "but he got away"

"Not my fault blueballs decided to show off with a little target practice"

"About that-" started Reaper.

"I'm not the only one here with a gun," huffed Widowmaker.

"Forget it, we're on a schedule," said Reaper, "tell the base commander two Overwatch agents are out there and warn him about the explosives. We're leaving."

As the Talon agents took off, gunfire again erupted on the tarmac.

"So Jack works alone, huh?"

"Not anymore it seems"

"I think I know who his partner is," said Sombra eying her fingernails, "you know anyone named Ana?"

"Yeah"

"Overwatch pal?"

Reaper was silent.

"I'm a quick study, Reaper. You really want me around"


	23. Chapter 23

_Shambali encampment on the Wakhan Corrider._

Sombra surveyed the Shambali encampment. The Talon aircraft had automatically landed in the camp moments ago, the militants boarded to investigate but couldn't find any passengers. They weren't expecting it, the aircraft was a mystery to them.

"It's only a matter of time before they show," said Sombra over her earpiece.

"They better," threatened Reaper.

Suddenly a flare popped in the night sky. The militants in the camp began to scramble. It was a Russian attack.

"Here we go," said Sombra under her breath.

Supersonic Russian jets exploded onto the scene and dropped precision bombs into the camp's ancient anti-aircraft guns. The militants mounted up taking defensive positions. Another flare went up, commandos were lighting the base so it could be targeted by all manner of high tech destructive weapons. Another explosion, the makeshift building the militants were using as a command post exploded. Russian dropships circled their landing zones hosing the militants with depleted uranium bullets.

Sombra watched from cover, tentatively gripping the trigger of her new toy. She was on the lookout for the pink haired woman. The Russian soldiers stormed out of their dropships laying down plasma fire. Lo and behold, among them was Commander Zarya.

"The Talon agents were tracked here, find their plane and tear it apart. I want everything inside that plane!" she shouted.

"Yes Commander!"

Zarya was delighting in the battle. Sombra activated her camouflage and traversed the battle. She noted that about 30 troops had been deployed. Soon she was at their rear flank. She decloaked behind a crew setting up a machinegun emplacement.

"Heya fellas," she said before gunning them down. "Too easy"

In an instant she shimmered and was gone. Zarya detected something was wrong when the firing stopped. She looked behind her and saw the dead crew.

"I smell a rat," she said.

"Behind you"

Sombra decloaked. Zarya activated her shield in surprise flinging Sombra back. Sombra twisted acrobatically through the air and landed crouching. She threw her translocator between Zarya's legs and in a flash was behind her. But Zarya caught on, she was already facing towards Sombra. "You remind me of someone, an annoying English girl," she stated before firing her weapon.

Sombra dodged the beam. "So, you know her. I'm not like her though, I've got a mean streak"

Several soldiers moved to assist Zarya. "Leave her, she's mine. This is personal," she commanded. The soldiers shrugged at each other and returned to the battle.

"That was a silly move, _amiga,"_ mocked Sombra as she picked up the translocator beacon. She stood grinning, tossing and catching the device the device in her hand. "I'm gonna hurt you"

Zarya laughed. "I like you, you are stupid"

Zarya fired her weapon and missed. Sombra was gone. Zarya looked around nervously. Suddenly, Sombra uncloaked behind her and fired her weapon into Zarya's legs. She groaned and fell to her knees dropping her massive weapon. Sombra walked in front of Zarya as she cursed. The massive woman had been felled.

"Everyone makes this mistake. English, India, jetpack, German..." said Sombra walking around Zarya in a circle, "now you, Ivan. They think I'm too cocky. Even my friends call me a narcissist"

Zarya grit her teeth and swung at Sombra but missed as she jumped out of the way. "Tisk tisk," said Sombra before spraying her gun at Zarya's knees. She let out an injured yell. Sombra was in control of the situation but one thing was wrong. "You're supposed to pass out _mija_ "

"I never give up. Besides, you lose, purple. Your forces are badly beaten"

This produced a problem, she needed her unconscious so she could inject the tracking device on her body without her knowing. Sombra tapped her lip as she thought for a moment. Zarya, meanwhile, maneuvered herself on her knees. It clearly caused her a lot of pain but it made her a threat. Sombra stared at her incredulously as she scraped herself towards her.

"Just pass out, I don't want to torture you"

Zarya laughed, "Come closer. I will break you."

"OK, I see how it is." Sombra threw down her translocator. Zarya slowly propped herself up and with great pain took a fighting stance.

"Let's go"

Zarya's first rocketed towards Sombra's head but in an instant she was gone. Zarya stumbled forward to her knees from the force of her punch. She felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned.

"You-"

Sombra whipped the handle of her gun at the top of Zarya's head with all the force she could muster and in an instant she was out. Zarya collapsed forward on her face. Sombra cursed for a moment before mounting the giant woman and pulling out her injector gun. She had to do this quickly before the soldiers around her noticed.

" _Chingón_ ," she muttered as she fired the injector into the back of her neck. The tracker nestled itself deep in her skin and deployed snags so it could not be easily removed if detected. Zarya grunted unconsciously in pain. Sombra pat her on her muscular back then quickly moved up to her hands. She struggled to open Zarya's massive fist. Once open she pressed her index finger against Zarya's to copy biometric data then searched her for any electronic devices. "Jackpot," muttered Sombra under her breath as she pulled out a tablet from Zarya's pocket. It was a standard issue tablet for Russian field officers. She quickly pulled a connector out of her, wrist plugged it in to the tablet and flashed a virus into the device's firmware. She was done.

"Hey, _pendejos_ ," yelled Sombra over to some soldiers.

They looked over in response and saw Zarya on her face. They rushed over as Sombra cloaked. She ran to cover.

"Mission accomplished," she said as she uncloaked.

"What about the plane?"

"They haven't found the surprise for them on board yet"

As a team of commandos entered the plane they were met by a directed blast from explosives hidden in the door. Sombra heard the explosion.

"That was it," she said watching the soldiers retreat from the plane, "They're falling back"

"Move now"

Sombra cloaked and ran past the retreating Russian soldiers to the plane. She stepped over a few bodies dismembered in the explosion and boarded. Quickly she ran to the cockpit.

"Get me out of here,"

"Location" replied the Talon autopilot AI's deep voice.

"I dunno, wherever Reaper and Widowmaker are!"

"Complying"

The plane spun up its engines and began its vertical take off procedure. Outside the Russian soldiers witnessed the plane preparing to take off.

"Should we fire?"

"No, hold your fire. Commander Zarya wanted the ship captured intact"

Sombra watched the radar for Russian MIGs to see if she would be shot from the sky. Nothing appeared as she left the combat zone. Soon she was in Talon friendly airspace and she let out a sigh of relief. She touched down in Northern China.

"It's done, it's only a matter of time before she contacts Katya"

"Was all that stuff you got necessary?"

"Well, it made it easier..."

"This better work, Sombra. And I still want you working on Zenyatta's lead"

 _They really had no idea,_ she thought.

"I don't see how this stops Zarya from tracking us or why we shouldn't leave for Russia now"

"It doesn't and we could but it depends on how you want to go. The way you two do things... I just don't know"

"I take it we aren't flying into Russia"

"We will need to cross the border undetected"


	24. Chapter 24

Zarya awoke in a Russian military hospital. Through the glass window facing the hallway in her room she watched three officers speak to the doctor.

"Is the commander fit to speak to us? It is most urgent"

"Yes, we removed the bullets and stitched her wounds. Remarkably, none of them did any major damage, though the stress on her tendons is severe. Do not make her stand, though I'm sure she will try" explained the doctor.

The three officers entered. Zarya strained to sit herself up.

"That won't be necessary commander, we can do without protocol"

"Gentlemen, this is most unexpected"

"Commander, we heard you continued to fight after your legs were mortally wounded ," said one.

"Most heroic"

"We came to hear your personal testimony about Talon activity in the region. Since you have encountered them not one but two times"

"Talon is becoming very active. Not just in the region, we tracked that plane from Nepal to Palma and now it's back in the region"

"These are the same Talon agents that attacked the Overwatch compound in Palma"

"We would like to know the opinion of your associate in this manner"

Zarya grinned, "But gentlemen, she is not in the chain of command-"

"Let's do aside with pleasantries, this meeting is off the record," an officer interrupted, "Talon and omnic attacks are escalating. You are now injured. We need her weapon ahead of schedule. As in immediately. The losses we are sustaining raiding these camps and hives are starting to be intolerable. I'm sure you can appreciate the pressure we are under."

"Katya is aware of the situation"

"We advise you to contact her soon and inform her of our request"

"Indeed"

The officers left. Zarya sighed and grabbed her tablet sitting on the stand next her bed. She activated it and opened a video chat with an unlisted contact.

"Katya"

Sombra listened and waited with a program to translate from Russian to Spanish.

"Alexandra, what is it? I am incredibly busy"

"Mommy, I want you to stay. Who are you talking to?" protested a young girl's voice.

Katya hushed the girl. "It won't be for long. I need you to be quiet now, mommy's working"

 _Was she answering from her personal computer? My God,_ thought Sombra, _I'm in._

"The generals have just informed me that they want the weapon immediately"

"Did I hear that correctly? The connection is bad"

Sombra chuckled to herself, "got you"

"Yes, Ms. Volskaya"

"Incompetents, they know nothing about research and development. Tell them no, the weapon is still being tested. Field tests will take months. For a weapon like this it might take another year"

"I'm sure they are aware, Katya"

"Fine. Tell them that I am moving the final inspection forward. I will oversee the testing myself. Units will be shipped in 3 weeks at the minimum. That is the best I can do"

Katya abruptly cut the link. Zarya let out another sigh and tossed the tablet to her feet and laid back. She thought of the purple woman, her grin, her mocking "I'm gonna hurt you." She had been right. Zarya couldn't stand defeat. She would find her and crush her.


	25. Chapter 25

Sombra tapped on her lip. There was a kid... Did Katya say she was going somewhere? Sombra waited for a moment then decided to just call the number Zarya had just called. If it didn't work there was a chance Sombra could be detected but it is possible that Katya wouldn't notice if she did it through a layered proxy. This was stupid but Sombra was all about bad judgment.

She made the call. It rang for a moment. Sombra cursed. This was a bad decision. Suddenly a little girl answered. Sombra was staring at Katya's daughter. She couldn't believe it. The girl had answered in Russian. Sombra blinked.

"Do you speak English?"

"I do, my mom makes me take English lessons after school"

"My you speak so well, better than I did at your age"

"Yeah, I'm smart, people say so"

"You are smart..."

Sombra floundered she didn't know how to talk to kids. She needed her to accept a file that would allow her to take control of Katya's computer. The kid was staring at her.

"Wow, you are beautiful, are you famous?"

Sombra laughed. _Kid after my own heart_.

"No kid, I'm not famous"

"You are like a fairy queen"

"Oh yeah? You know I have special powers?"

"No way"

Sombra held her palm out and generated a hypnotic display of particles dancing in her hand.

"That's cool, how can I do that?"

"You have to have a computer in your back. It's expensive but worth it, you didn't hear that from me though"

"Hey, who are you anyways?"

"I can't tell you my name but I can show you something else," Sombra generated her calavera mark with her hand and showed it to her, "you can think of me when you see it"

The girl was in awe. She thought Sombra was so cool.

"I'm Katerina"

"Nice to meet you Katerina. say can you do me a favor? Can you open this file I just sent you?"

"Why should I?"

Sombra's face suddenly turned serious, "It's very important. Your mother is in danger, this will help protect your mother's life. But it's important that she never knows," Sombra prayed that was convincing, half-truths helped her lie more effectively.

She watched a wave of fear pass through the girl's eyes.

"Why should I believe you?"

 _Crap_ , thought Sombra.

"I'm friends with your mother. Please, Katerina it's very important. If something happens to your mother it will be your fault"

"OK, fine, I don't want to get in trouble"

Sombra sent her the hack and the savvy girl opened and installed it herself.

"Remember, this is our little secret"

"Okaay," she sighed.

They said goodbye and signed off. She let out a sigh of relief and started laughing to herself. _Kids, so fucking stupid._ It was almost a fluke but she did it. Everything, she had absolutely everything: access to Katya's files, her emails, her browser history, every ounce of activity on her computer would be channeled directly to Sombra. Most importantly, Reaper wouldn't kill her. All Sombra had to do was wait.


	26. Chapter 26

It wasn't long before Sombra had read the pertinent emails in Katya's account to learn that the weapon inspection she was speaking of would take place at the Volskaya Industries Svyatogor plant near St. Petersburg. She played the recording for Reaper and Widowmaker. It was the perfect hack, what they had wanted all along: Sombra had phished it without ever stepping foot in Russia. They were completely in her pocket.

Now with nothing to do until the mission, Sombra watched Katya's webcam obsessively. She watched her at work, on the airplane-when she was supposed to have turned it off, she watched Katya give presentations to board members, she watched her pen opeds for Pravda, tuck her daughter in and kiss her good night, she had seen her change-Katya was fairly fit, she had seen her sleep-Katya slept soundly, not like Sombra who always awoke exhausted and frantic. The whole rhythm of Katya's life was exposed to Sombra.

She was particularly fascinated with Katya's daughter. It must be nice having a mother. Seeing Katya hold her daughter in a knowing, loving, protective way... It caused strange feelings in her. _Families are bullshit_ , she thought. _Would I be a hacker if I had a family? I would be a lame nothing_. Every mother she knew just told her what to do. She watched Katya gently tap her daughter on the nose, the image of maternal composure and power.

"If only you knew what your mother was up to..."

She broke away from the strangely hypnotic images of Katya's domestic life and her mind turned to Talon. She was dissatisfied. This was working all too well. The hack was too easy. Blackness closed in on Sombra and she felt depression chasing her.

She had come along way building the trust of her constituents but could feel something nagging her, the dark maladjusted part of her, the part that wanted to screw things up while for no reason.

 _They are broken people_ , it said, _they will never trust or respect you, they are too caught up in their own morbid dramas._ _They are half dead anyways, do you think they deserve your trust?_

"Shut up, I finally have a good thing going here," she said aloud.

 _You think you have it pretty good here? You are trash to them, they have no idea what you are capable of, that's why they are afraid._

"They _are_ afraid..."

 _You are on the verge of real power, no more living in trash, you will be manipulating the world's most dangerous organization and they won't even know, you won't need anyone, you will be free, you won't be running from the cops anymore or broke. Aren't you tired of starving? Aren't you tired of ingratiating yourself to idiots?_ _If you do this you'll have accomplished more than Los Muertos did in years, you will have blackmailed a politician for life and there is nothing they can do about it. You can take Talon and Katya for a ride in the same day._

That seemed pretty good.

Sombra thought of all the money she had acquired during her exploits sitting variously in anonymous bank accounts and buried safes around Mexico. She thought of the pain in the ass it was to trickle it into her accounts, how it was a combination of dumb luck, bribes, threats and seduction that kept her whole operation going. How nice it would be to start a trust? A Russian oligarch could make it happen.

 _So what?_ she thought _, I just sneak out, threaten her family and then let her have the slip the day Talon goes to kill her?_

 _No, that's non-sense, they won't let you out anyways._

"So I do it at the same time"

This was the mischief she had been missing. This would be in perfect Los Muertos style: they would deliver the target to Sombra and Sombra would give them nothing and take everything for herself.

 _Yes, I get her alone, show her the material and make her an offer she can't refuse. And if she says no, I'll kill her._

It was perfect. This was too good. Too bad no one else could appreciate it.


	27. Chapter 27

_After the events of "Infiltration"_

"Back to the ship," Reaper grumbled.

Sombra knew she was in for it. The thought of running briefly entered her mind but instead she dutifully made her way to the evac site. Sombra slinked onto the ship, keeping a lookout for Reaper or Widowmaker. She wasn't sure if they had gotten wise.

"Sombra..." Reapers voice emanated from inside the ship.

 _Shit, I am in for it,_ thought Sombra. Reaper materialized behind her. Detected that something was wrong and turned to see Reapers armored hand engulfing her face. Reaper pushed her to the floor. She felt the back of her head impact with the floor of the ship and her vision became disoriented.

"I deserve that," she muttered.

"You-," he roared, "you incompetent, psychotic, disobedient, pathetic, you-" Reaper was at a loss for words.

He picked her up and threw her against the wall. She slumped against the floor with her knees up. Widowmaker entered the room and watched, usually she had a smirk on when Sombra was getting it but this time she frowned as if somewhat disturbed.

"Yeah, give it to me you fucking pervert," mocked Sombra, "you're so in charge. Why don't you just do me in?"

Reaper cocked his head to the side. "No," he said stooping down and grabbing the back of Sombra's head. "Look at me," he commanded. Sombra returned her sleepless and innervated gaze but her calculating eyes were gone, she looked angry and impatient. She was checking out, waiting for him to decide what he was going to do to her. "Do you know why I chose you? You've never failed. Ever. Every harebrained scheme that you've put your mind to you have completed one way or another. That was what Talon's machines didn't pick up. You had a 100 percent success rate. Why did you fail now, when everything was on the line?" Reaper waited. Sombra sat silently. "ANSWER ME," he roared.

"The alarm went off, they must have had a redundant system. It wasn't my fault," explained Sombra. She sniffed and felt something hot and wet on her nose, was she _crying?_ She hadn't cried from a sense of guilt in a very long time.

"It _was_ your fault. You were supposed to know the facility, you were supposed to be in their security system. No alarm was supposed to go off unless you _wanted_ it to go off" He punched next to her head denting the metal. "You, you're a traitor. I know you, you're too smart to be a fuckup"

Sombra felt whatever Reaper had for eyes on her body. Somehow she could tell he was thinking of the myriad ways he could take her apart. _So this is what it feels like,_ she thought.

"Reaper, you are acting ridiculous, she's not a traitor," said Widowmaker, "she's brought us this far"

"Stay out," threatened Reaper. Reaper thought for a moment. "Yeah, you have brought us this far and you're going to get us out. This mission is completely compromised. Katya knows we are after her. You are going to write the report to Talon and explain why this is not a complete failure and how you intend to finish the job." Reaper stood. "You've made a complete fool out of me, you knew that Talon wouldn't accept failure. This is _worse_ than Gibralter"

Widowmaker rolled her eyes. "You've had a run of bad luck, _cherie_. Perhaps you are losing your touch"

"I said stay out. Prepare for takeoff, we can't stay here." He looked at Sombra. "Or don't, what do I care?" He went upstairs to the cockpit.

She leaned down and whispered in Sombra's ear. "Thats two times, _mon petit chouchou_. I know how you make friends, so this makes us very close _n'est pas_? Are we clear?" She pulled away and spoke more loudly. "Nod like you understand." Sombra nodded. "Good." Widowmaker sighed and stood up. "And crying too? Quite a touch. You truly are a perfect narcissist." Widowmaker retired to her room.

A twinge of manic happiness hit Sombra's brain. She held her knees tightly and grinned. _I did it,_ she thought.


End file.
